


Poison and Wine

by musicfeedsthesoul



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Rewrite, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-07 20:04:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13442352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicfeedsthesoul/pseuds/musicfeedsthesoul
Summary: Chloe Beale has never actually been in love before. That much she is aware of. When she meets Beca Mitchell, the short and edgy-looking freshman who 'doesn't sing,' her entire world is turned upside down. Everything is different, but she's having a hard time telling whether things have changed for the better or for the worse.





	1. i never saw you coming (and i'll never be the same)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! This is my first Bechloe story and it is also the first story I've posted on the internet, but it isn't the first story I've written. I've had the idea of a Pitch Perfect rewrite floating around in my head for awhile and I thought I'd give it a go. I really hope you enjoy it!
> 
> I don't own Pitch Perfect.

 

She’s never actually been in love before.

That much Chloe is aware of. She’s had plenty of boyfriends and girlfriends (if she could even call them that) and so many (usually drunk) hookups that she can barely keep track of them all, but she’s never felt anything more than basic physical attraction for _anyone_.

The thought scares her a little bit, because she starts to talk herself into the idea that she might not even be capable of real love, (even though she’s always considered herself to be a romantic at heart) but she really doesn’t mind _all_ that much. (That’s what she tells herself, at least). She likes the freedom to explore the many different options that the world has to offer. She _likes_ not being tied down by a relationship. It’s simpler that way. Easier.

Aubrey disagrees. She wants her best friend to be happy, and Chloe insists that she is, but the other girl doesn’t buy it, because she just doesn’t understand. The blonde seems to think that a boyfriend or a girlfriend or anything in between will fill this void that she is convinced rests in Chloe’s heart. It worked for her, anyway. Until Toby.

Honestly, Chloe couldn’t care less about what Aubrey thinks. (That absolutely isn’t true, but she wouldn’t dare tell her that. She’d never hear the end of it). Chloe is perfectly happy to cruise through college completely single. It just feels… _right_ , somehow. It feels safer.

She watches her friends experience heartbreak after heartbreak, and she’s silently grateful that she’s never had to go through that kind of pain. Sure, she has to admit that she is a little lonely without someone in her life, but she is also still the same smiling girl that her parents sent off to college nearly three years ago. She hasn’t changed. Not really, anyway. Not majorly.

Aubrey’s changed a lot since their freshman year. She is slowly becoming more uptight and obsessive (as if that were even possible) and so bossy that sometimes even Chloe can’t stand it, but Aubrey is her best friend and her favorite person, so the redhead holds her tongue.

God, Toby _really_ did a number on Aubrey.

Chloe watches the blonde spiral into depression after Toby breaks up with her, and she pities the poor girl, but all she seems to be able to feel is sick. She never wants to have to suffer in the ways that Aubrey suffers. Just thinking about it makes her nauseous. She never, _ever_ wants to feel like that. She hasn’t changed, even though Aubrey has, and she would like for that aspect of her life to stay the same. She doesn’t want to break into a million tiny little pieces that Aubrey will inevitably have to pick up, because that’s what friends do.

She’s whole.

***

She meets Jacob in the autumn of her junior year, just as the leaves are beginning to fall.

They first run into one another at the library. Chloe is looking for a book on the history of acapella, (she’s doing research for the Bellas per Alice’s request) and he’s studying alone at a table nearby that particular section. She bumps into his chair by accident and feels obligated to apologize, even though she honestly doesn’t care very much. He doesn’t seem to mind either.

He’s certainly very cute - shaggy brown hair, bright green eyes, and a smile that could probably blind somebody - and Chloe absolutely notices.  
Jacob notices her too (because quite frankly, how could he possibly have not) and suddenly it’s January and he’s meeting her parents. They like him, which Chloe appreciates, because she likes him too.

It’s also entirely possible that she could even love him.

When she first realizes this, she’s the slightest bit terrified. She has purposefully made it her college mission to _not_ fall in love, mostly because she’d really rather not deal with the crushing weight of heartbreak and loneliness, and _God_ , what if he doesn’t love her back?

But then she convinces herself to take a leap of faith because it’s _college_ , and she doesn’t exactly have anything to lose. Besides, it’s Jacob. He’s cute and sweet and funny and always holds the door for her and buys her chocolates whenever she’s sad. He’s perfect. He wouldn’t ever hurt her in the way that Toby hurt Aubrey, or in the ways that any of her other friends were hurt by a significant other.

So Chloe decides that she does love Jacob, and giving into the feeling is probably the best experience that she’s ever had. It’s euphoric and freeing and so indescribably wonderful that she almost believes that it isn’t real.  
It’s not.

She finds him in bed one night with some random girl that she doesn’t even know. In that moment, the whole fantasy comes crashing down around her.

He never apologizes, but in all fairness, it’s not like she ever gives him the chance to. She has trouble processing the situation, although she absolutely understands the fact that she never wants to see him again. That much is clear to her. She also finally understands exactly how Aubrey felt after Toby.

Not to be dramatic, but it’s probably the worst she’s ever felt.

Chloe breaks, (she shatters) and when she finally manages to put herself back together, there’s a piece missing.

***

It’s horrible for her to think about, but she’s never _quite_ the same after Jacob. Her desire for love has changed in the sense that it is no longer nonexistent. In fact, she practically craves it, and it makes her feel disgusted that he is the one to trigger that response.

Chloe hates him. She might also still love him, if only a little bit. She tries to pretend otherwise, but of course Aubrey doesn’t believe her, so she gives in and allows herself to feel.

The heartbreak she experiences because of Jacob is so deeply jarring that Chloe isn’t completely sure what hit her. She thought for years that she was perfectly content with just having occasional sex partners, but she’s finally realized that what she truly wants is so much more.

She wants a real relationship with someone that won’t hurt her like he did. She wants love at first sight, even though she knows how juvenile and ridiculous that sounds.  
Above all else, Chloe just wants to be happy.

It’s really a shame that she doesn’t fully understand how anymore.

***

In every single movie that Chloe has ever seen, there’s always this clear and definite moment towards the beginning that involves the main character meeting their love interest. It’s almost always dramatic and cheesy and _completely_ unrealistic, but she really doesn’t mind, because even though she’s somehow _still_ single at twenty-one, she is a hopeless romantic right down to her very core.

She loves the cliche of the attractive coffeehouse barista asking out the cute and nerdy college student via a message scribbled on their regular order. She could never turn down two strangers bumping into one another on a crowded street, or young lovers sharing a passionate kiss in the pouring rain.

After years of dating (well, dating is a bit of a loose term, the key exception being Jacob) practically anyone who seemed even the slightest bit interested, love at first sight is literally Chloe’s dream. She would willingly give next to _anything_ to have that perfect and cringeworthy Hollywood-style romance that she’s fantasized about ever since she was a little girl, but no matter how hard she tries, that life-changing moment never happens to her.

She starts to believe that it never will, which is so incredibly ridiculous that she laughs at herself when she first has the thought - she can’t honestly expect to be alone forever, can she? - but the little voice in the back of her mind quickly turns into something that she can’t seem to ignore, despite her best efforts.

So Chloe resorts to drowning herself in chick flicks and chocolate and enough alcohol to probably qualify her for a new liver, all with the intention of keeping her mind off of the crushing sting of rejection she experienced with Jacob, and the simple desire to finally experience true love.

She really doesn’t like waiting, though, and she finds herself regularly sleeping with strange men and women, desperately hoping that one of them might make her feel _something_. Or even anything at all.

They never do, and the cycle repeats.

***

  
Chloe’s best friend, Aubrey Posen, first notices that something is probably seriously wrong when the redhead begins to skip practice.

The Barden Bellas are basically their entire lives - they’ve both poured their heart and souls into that acapella group, Aubrey maybe a little _too_ much - and it is so incredibly unlike Chloe to forego practice, regardless of the reason.

At first, Aubrey is extremely confused and, to be perfectly honest, a little miffed. They have so much work to do if they want to make up for the absolute disaster that was last year’s Nationals, and she really doesn’t have the time for Chloe’s impulsive decision to just up and _skip practice_.

So when the blonde finally decides that enough is enough and goes to her soon-to-be co-captain’s dorm to discuss the issue with her, she is more than a little shocked at the sight that greets her. She loves Chloe to death, truthfully, but oh my _God_ , isn’t retreating into a depressive funk over lack of a significant other at the very least the tiniest bit pathetic?

But then Aubrey remembers Jacob, and she figures that her friend is probably still grieving her lost relationship, despite the fact that he broke Chloe’s heart almost three months ago. She also remembers Toby and how perfectly awful he made her feel, and the redhead’s horrific appearance suddenly doesn’t matter so much anymore.

Chloe quite clearly hasn’t showered in days, and she’s crying, and her bed is littered with so much junk food that Aubrey almost has a heart attack just looking at it. Her best friend is a mess, and she was all prepared to yell at the poor girl, but now all she wants to do is pull Chloe into a tight hug and listen to her woes.

That’s exactly after she does. After a night filled with plenty of tears and pizza, (no tequila, or wine, or vodka - Aubrey didn’t think it necessary to encourage her friend’s rapidly developing alcoholism) Aubrey _finally_ manages to convince Chloe to take a shower. She helps the exhausted redhead apply her makeup, cleans up her dorm, and changes the disgusting sheets that have been on that bed for God knows how long.

When Chloe isn’t looking, she also steals her collection of romantic movies. They seemed to contribute more to the problem than help to solve it, so she really doesn’t think it wise to allow her friend to continue to watch them.

The two girls go to practice with the Bellas, and Chloe seems to actually be making some progress. She stops skipping all of their rehearsals, she starts to smile more, and her breath no longer smells like vodka that she has failed to conceal with spearmint gum. She’s genuinely doing better, and for a little while, Aubrey has hope.  
Two weeks go by, then two months, and suddenly the school year is over. Aubrey no longer has the opportunity to keep an eye on Chloe, which she knows is stupid, but she’s disappointed. She doesn’t want her favorite person to fall back into that endless vacuum of sadness that the redhead seems to think can be solved with sex and a drink.

Chloe drunk dials her three days into summer vacation, and she’s crying so hard that her newly appointed co-captain is forced to drive four hours in the rain to ensure that she’s all right.

She is so inebriated and depressed and so totally pathetic, but the blonde allows her to sob in her arms anyway. She cries and cries, repeatedly complaining that no one will ever love her in the way that she desperately wants to be loved.

Jacob didn’t, and so Aubrey’s heart breaks right along with Chloe’s. It sucks.

Two days turn into a week, and Chloe is still lost in her conviction that she will be without love forever, despite Aubrey’s constant reminders that she is an incredible young woman with so much to offer.

One week becomes two, and the redhead starts to bring home strangers, probably wishing that _any_ of them will miraculously be the one she has been dreaming of for so long. They never are, of course, and the morning after always involves Aubrey holding back Chloe’s hair as she pukes and wiping away her tears as she cries.

Two weeks somehow melt into a month, and just like that, Aubrey loses hope.

***

The rest of the summer goes by so quickly that Chloe is willing to entertain the possibility that she imagined her entire vacation. Granted, she doesn’t necessarily _remember_ most of it, due to the excessive amount that she drank over the course of three months, but she convinces herself that her recent decisions have all been for the best.

Aubrey spent the first month of summer with her, which she deeply appreciated, but she hasn’t seen her best friend since late June. The blonde calls her just before school is about to start back up again, asking her how she’s been doing, and if she wants to meet up somewhere for breakfast prior to their first day. There’s also this unspoken plea to find out _what_ Chloe has been doing, and it’s a question that she can’t quite bring herself to answer.

Chloe pretends that the summer hasn’t been as horrible as it has, and Aubrey just sort of goes with it. They don’t talk about anything (or anyone) that the redhead has done, which is certainly fine with her. They definitely don’t talk about why she made those decisions. She doesn’t want to hear the blonde remind her just how pathetic she actually is, even though she knows that Aubrey would never dare say anything like that to her face.

Still, she knows that Aubrey is disappointed in her. Quite frankly, Chloe has never been more disappointed in herself. But seeing the way that her favorite person had looked at her with thinly veiled pity and sometimes even disgust had done absolutely nothing but make Chloe feel even worse. She knows that she has let Aubrey - and by extension, the Bellas - down by overreacting to a simple situation, but God, she was (and is) so incredibly _lonely_ that her soul ached.

Sure, perhaps attempting to wash away her feelings with booze and really most of the age-appropriate (sometimes otherwise) individuals in her hometown hadn’t exactly qualified as the _best_ way to handle her problems, and she truly was embarrassed that Aubrey had seen her act so childishly. But the depression triggered by her breakup with Jacob was (and is) so… so _there_ , and Chloe didn’t have much of a choice besides falling into it and letting it practically swallow her whole.

She hadn’t known how else to cope. It was quite literally her first real heartbreak. That was sort of the point of refraining from falling in love at all.

That isn’t her fault.

When Chloe ends the conversation with Aubrey, she bursts into tears. She feels horrible for allowing her fear of never finding her one true love to consume her, and she isn’t completely sure why the blonde still wants to be her friend. Aubrey has seen her at her worst, and the very thought makes her feel sick.

She cries for some time, grieving the choices she had made and the person she had become. She cries until the tears stop falling and her sobs slow to breathing, and she vows then and there that she will make a change in her life during her senior year at Barden University. She won’t let her desperation and sadness control her, and she will pour everything she has into the Bellas.

She is determined to be different, to be better, and when her last first day of college rolls around, Chloe is more than ready to face whatever life has to throw at her.

She has also never been more naive.

***

“Ready for our first day?” Aubrey asks as they set up their booth at the activities fair.

As seniors, Chloe and Aubrey are the designated captains of the Barden Bellas, and it is their duty to find new recruits to replace all those that graduated last year.

“Of course,” Chloe replies quietly, closing her eyes and trying her absolute hardest to believe it.

She wants to be better, absolutely, but she’s already finding it a lot harder than she would have hoped. Still, she somehow manages to keep her signature smile plastered on her face, fully aware that if she looks happy, maybe people will be convinced that she actually is.

Chloe forgets that she has known Aubrey for four years, and that the blonde most certainly doesn’t count as ‘people.’ She knows that she could never hide anything from Aubrey, and that her best friend can see directly through her facade, but she smiles anyway, shoving the hopelessness back into this little box in the corner of her mind.

“It’s okay if you’re not, you know. I’ll understand.”

Aubrey’s voice is uncharacteristically gentle and reassuring, and Chloe _almost_ lets the whole act drop by sinking back into the oh-so-welcoming void and bursting into tears. Almost.

“I’m fine, Bree. Really, I am.”

Chloe’s own voice is crisp and not at all clogged with tears (miraculously), and for a moment she almost thinks that Aubrey will actually believe her, or at the very least just let the whole damn thing go. Almost.

“Chloe-” Aubrey starts to say, her eyes sad and her tone littered with concern.

“Drop it,” the redhead interrupts. She doesn’t look at her best friend, who finally seems to take the hint and goes back to quietly arranging their tiny booth.

***

They have trouble getting people to join their group.

Chloe expected this, _especially_ after last year’s incident, (which Aubrey doesn’t want to talk about ever again, and she respects that) but she’d hoped that more than just a few people would have been interested in becoming a Bella. They’d already met some freshmen that wanted to audition, some more _interesting_ than others, (like the Australian girl who called herself Fat Amy) but those girls just weren’t enough. The Bellas needed more if they wanted to make up for last year’s embarrassment.

It doesn’t help that Aubrey is hell-bent on sticking to tradition, and only seems to want girls with bikini-ready bodies and absolutely perfect pitch. Chloe is content with recruiting girls who can sing, which she suggests to the blonde. Not to her surprise, Aubrey shoots the idea down immediately. She wants to uphold the pristine Bellas legacy, not try something new just because they still have to prove themselves.

They stand in the same spot for a while, feeling desperate and a little hopeless, but trying to appear otherwise. Aubrey starts to get nervous and repeatedly wrings her hands. Chloe continues to smile, pretending that the very effort of doing so doesn’t make her feel positively horrid inside. She keeps swallowing the dark and regret-filled images from the summer that keep resurfacing in her mind, and _that_ particular effort hurts so much that she almost can’t breathe.

When the short and edgy-looking girl with the headphones around her neck walks by, she suddenly can’t breathe for a completely different reason.

All of the horrible memories vanish the second that Chloe makes eye contact with this girl, and the next thing she knows, all she can think about are cheesy and unnecessarily overdone cliches in romance movies, and oh my _God_ , she can’t _breathe_.

Chloe spent the better part of four months drinking herself into a stupor and spending her nights with strangers, all because she couldn’t quite seem to get over Jacob. She couldn’t seem to experience that defining moment that movie characters have when they meet their one true love for the first time. As she stares at the gorgeous girl with the headphones, the feeling in the pit of her stomach is telling her that maybe, _just maybe_ , this is finally it.

“What about her?” she says slowly, gesturing at the girl as she walks by. She does her best to keep the excitement out of her voice.

Aubrey starts to protest slightly, because all of that eyeliner doesn’t exactly scream ‘Bellas material,’ but Chloe shoves the flier at the girl anyway.

The co-captains have a brief exchange with the brown-haired freshman, both at least slightly offended that she wasn’t at all intrigued by the prospect of becoming a member of an all-female acapella group, (acapella is _not_ lame) but Chloe honestly doesn’t care that much. She’s too giddy to be genuinely bothered, and Aubrey notices.

“What are you so happy about?” her best friend says indignantly, crossing her arms. “She turned us down. Us! The Barden Bellas!”

“I just- no reason.” Chloe smiles and bites her lip, the realization that she’s actually had her moment filling her with unbridled joy, so she ignores the fact that Aubrey is raising an eyebrow.

She doesn’t think of Jacob anymore after that day, and it is so completely freeing that she can almost feel a weight being lifted off her shoulders. His memory is no longer haunting her. He’s gone from her mind forever. He’s been replaced with someone else: the pretty freshman with the beats and the eyeliner and the deep blue eyes.  
Chloe Beale isn’t even entirely sure that she truly believed in love at first sight before today, but now she has never been more certain of anything else, ever.

Love at first sight looks like Beca Mitchell.


	2. get caught up in a moment (lipstick on your face)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I am honestly in awe of how many people read the first chapter to this story... up until yesterday, my best friend is the only other person who has ever read my writing, and knowing that over 200 people have seen my work is just insane. Thank you so much to everyone who has liked this so far!
> 
> I really hope you enjoy chapter two!

She spends the next several days thinking about the brown-haired freshman, and virtually nothing else. God, she can’t wait to see that girl again. They’ve barely interacted at all and Chloe’s already completely infatuated with her, which she knows is the  _ slightest  _ bit creepy, but she tries not to let that bother her. (She fails).

  


What  _ does  _ bother her is the fact that if the freshman doesn’t at the very least audition for the Bellas, then there is realistically no way for the two of them to ever interact. The girl is a freshman and she’s a senior. There’s practically no chance that they’ll have a class together, and Chloe is honestly considering somehow switching up her schedule so that she can spend more time with the girl. (She’s like eighty percent sure that her name is Beca - she totally didn’t ask around until somebody gave her an answer - but she tries not to focus on the name too much, just in case she somehow ends up being wrong).

  


Aubrey isn’t blind, and she senses a drastic change in Chloe. When she tries to ask her about it, the redhead reveals nothing more than the fact that she is finally,  _ finally  _ over Jacob. Her best friend knows her well enough to understand that prying wouldn’t do her any good, so Aubrey quietly accepts this explanation without any hassle or further questioning. Chloe doesn’t say anything, but she is grateful for the cooperation. 

  


Despite not pushing Chloe for any more information, Aubrey does seem to think that her best friend actually getting over her funk calls for some celebration, so the two girls go out to a frat party on their third night at Barden. It’s a moment of weakness for Aubrey, who really isn’t all that into parties or letting her hair down in any way, shape, or form, but she does it for Chloe. 

  


(In all fairness, Chloe is pretty shocked that Aubrey thinks exposing her to alcohol is a decent idea after the mess that happened over the summer, but she shrugs it off). 

  


It’s here that, after having a few too many beers, Chloe meets Tom. He is also a senior, she’s pretty sure he’s in her Russian Lit class, and he’s really cute, so she doesn’t think twice when he tries to kiss her or touch her or take off her shirt. She just… lets him.

  


She later tries to justify her actions by blaming everything on the alcohol. Honestly, she wouldn’t have made those decisions without being so incredibly wasted that she couldn’t exactly see straight anymore. She never would have slept with Tom had she been sober. Right? (She makes it a rule not to sleep with most people unless she’s completely inebriated, mostly because it helps her refrain from getting attached). 

  


The next morning, she wakes up with a raging headache, no less than seven missed calls from Aubrey, and Tom lying face down in her bed. (He’s snoring. Loudly). They’re both naked and she kind of feels like crying because she can’t believe that she did something like this  _ again _ , especially since she swore to herself that she was done with drunken (and all) hookups. She blames that on the alcohol, too.

  


But then Tom wakes up, and his smile is so dazzling and his eyes so bright that she almost finds it easier to breathe, somehow. The guilt dissipates ever so slightly, which usually  _ never  _ happens, and Chloe lets herself relax.

  


She calms down fairly quickly, so much so that Tom doesn’t notice that anything was wrong in the first place. When he invites her to come with him to the showers and get cleaned up, she just sort of goes with it. 

  


It’s in the shower with Tom that Chloe first hears the most amazing voice in the world. 

  


Okay, maybe she’s being just a  _ touch  _ dramatic, (that’s nothing new, which Aubrey frequently likes to remind her) but the person singing is doing an incredible job, and as a captain of the Bellas, she can’t help but notice. The voice is clear and melodic and soothing and crisp all at once, and Chloe melts inside.

  


She quietly tells Tom that she’ll be right back, (even though she isn’t completely sure that she will be) and she heads in the direction of the singing girl. Upon reaching the shower stall that the beautiful voice is coming from, Chloe rips open the curtain with a broad smile on her face, prepared to invite the occupant to audition for her acapella group.

Okay, so boundaries aren’t really Chloe’s thing. 

  


The smile almost slips off her face when she recognizes the girl in the shower. It’s Beca, the brown-haired freshman from the activities fair. It’s the girl that turned them down because she ‘doesn’t really sing.’

  


Well, Chloe now knows that such an excuse is absolute  _ bullshit _ . Beca is an  _ amazing  _ singer. 

  


“Ha!” Chloe exclaims triumphantly and the freshman screams, hastily tugging the curtain shut, but Chloe pulls it back open. “You  _ can  _ sing!”

  


She can’t help but feel a little badly for barging in on the poor girl like this, but she was honestly so totally mesmerized by Beca’s voice that she didn’t stop to consider that this  _ might  _ fall under the category of ‘crossing a line.’ Anyway, she knows that the freshman is acutely aware that they are both completely naked, which isn’t that big of a deal to Chloe. She’s pretty confident and comfortable with her body, (according to Beca, she should be) and she’s seen enough naked women to not be fazed by the situation.

  


Despite their joint nudity, she somehow convinces Beca to sing Titanium with her, and she sort of dies inside because this girl is  _ that good _ (and their harmonies are so kickass that she could just squeal with joy, which she definitely does  _ not  _ do later, when she’s alone in her apartment). 

  


Once they’re done, they have a slightly awkward exchange during which Tom comes looking for Chloe and expresses his admiration for Beca’s voice, annoying them both. Chloe would have been perfectly content to just stare at Beca for a while longer, although she has to admit doing so would definitely be extremely creepy and absolutely counts as crossing a plethora of lines, but he has ruined that by coming to find her. 

  


Beca essentially implies that Chloe should leave because she still needs to take a shower, and the redhead obliges (albeit a tad unhappily). She really would have liked to stay, but she goes back to a different shower stall with Tom, pretending that she isn’t wrestling with a monster of guilt on the inside. 

  


Tom tries to pick up where he left off with her. She just sort of goes with it. 

  


***

  


Auditions roll around, and Chloe has honestly never seen Aubrey this nervous and on edge before. Her best friend is so unbelievably determined to make up for last year’s totally epic failure that she’s not entirely sure that the blonde has been sleeping much lately. If at all. 

  


To be fair, Chloe hasn’t exactly been sleeping much either. Not because of Tom, (she ended things with him just as quickly as they started, once again swallowing the guilt of reverting to bad habits) but because of Beca. She lies awake at night thinking of the freshman and wondering if she’ll actually audition for the Bellas. 

  


(Her mind also wanders to their shower interaction, but she does her best to think of literally anything else… and fails miserably).

  


She hopes that the brunette will show up. The Bellas could certainly use a girl as musically gifted as Beca. With her on their team, they might seriously have a real chance at winning the ICCA’s. 

  


She’s unceremoniously ripped out of her hopeful daydream by Aubrey’s altercation with the Treblemakers, and she does her duty as co-captain by playing the part of the quiet mediator.

  


The auditions start, and everyone is performing their own versions of Since You’ve Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson. Aubrey really isn’t all that impressed. Neither is Chloe. Sure, some of the acapella hopefuls are genuinely talented, (like Cynthia-Rose and Jesse) but none of them are quite as good as the brunette freshman that the ginger senior can’t seem to forget. 

  


Chloe blinks and the next thing she knows, the quirky college student whose name she can never remember is announcing that the auditions are over. She is about to be sorely disappointed, but then she notices Beca slowly emerging from the wings, and she quickly speaks up. The freshman awkwardly walks onto the stage and mentions that she wasn’t aware that they had to prepare that song. Smiling widely because she honestly cannot believe that this is actually happening, Chloe reassures Beca that it’s okay, and she can sing whatever she’d like.

  


Beca blows them all away with her strange (yet oddly satisfying) rendition of an old Carter family song accompanied by a rhythmic routine using Chloe’s yellow Barden University cup, but Aubrey pretends as though the audition isn’t all that good. (She’s just upset because Beca was late and deviated from the predetermined norm and sang a different song than what she was supposed to). Still, Chloe reminds the blonde that the freshman did a positively superb job, and she convinces her to let Beca into the Bellas.

  


By some stroke of luck on Chloe’s part, Aubrey agrees. Beca is now a Barden Bella, and Chloe will be seeing a  _ lot  _ more of her in the future.

  


She can’t believe it.

  


***   
  


Somehow, Chloe and Aubrey manage to put together a team that actually kind of makes sense. 

  


Well, at least Chloe thinks it makes sense. All of the girls that they let in are genuinely talented in their own right, and she believes that with a little hard work, they might become a force to be reckoned with. Aubrey isn’t  _ quite  _ as optimistic, but she is so determined to win that she is willing to do essentially whatever it takes - even if that includes recruiting a few women that would have  _ never  _ been Barden Bellas in previous years.

  


“Bree, I really think this could be our year!” Chloe excitedly tells the blonde over dinner, the night that they will be initiating the girls into the Bellas. 

  


Aubrey simply clucks her tongue in response. 

  


“Oh come  _ on _ ,” Chloe says, waving her fork in Aubrey’s direction. Little chunks of grilled chicken fly off of it, but she pretends not to notice. “You have to admit that we’ve got a pretty talented group. I think if we just practice and put in a lot of effort, we might actually-”

  


“Okay, what’s gotten into you?” Aubrey has leaned across the table towards Chloe, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. She sets down her glass of wine and impatiently waits for an answer.

  


Chloe frowns. “What are you talking about?” (She knows exactly what Aubrey is talking about).

  


Her best friend’s eyes widen in mock surprise. “Hm, let me think… I don’t know, last year you were such a mess that you were almost late for our ICCA’s performance, and now you’re convinced that we’ll win  _ this  _ year, even with our ragtag band of aca-wannabes!”

  


Chloe knows that Aubrey is stressed. She’s never this sarcastic unless something is making her anxious, but the redhead opts to ignore this. “At least  _ I’m  _ not the one who tarnished our reputation in the first place.”

  


Aubrey gasps, horrified, and Chloe takes a triumphant sip of her wine. 

  


“You take that back, Chloe!” the blonde angrily hisses.

  


“No,” she replies simply, but her voice is slowly rising in volume. “I won’t apologize for the truth. As for what’s gotten into me, I’ve decided to turn over a new leaf and try to fix my mistakes from last year. I suggest that you do the same, or you’ll be right, Aubrey. We won’t be able to beat the Treblemakers, and it’ll be your fault.”

  


The other girl stares at her for a solid fifteen seconds before she responds, her voice sharp and quietly furious. “Get out.”

  


Chloe doesn’t have to be told twice.

  


***

  


The next night, at the aca-initiation party, she and Aubrey pretend that they didn’t have a fight less than twenty-four hours earlier. Surprisingly, it’s this refusal to acknowledge what happened that enables them to leave it in the past, at least for the time being. Besides, they’re best friends, and they can’t stay mad at one another for long. (Even if Aubrey  _ is  _ an overbearing, domineering, controlling bit- sorry,  _ person _ ).

  


Chloe doesn’t really have time to think about Aubrey, anyway. She wants to use the party as an excuse to get to know Beca better. 

  


But Beca is talking to Jesse, one of the new Treblemaker recruits, and she’s  _ laughing _ at whatever he’s saying, because he’s cute and funny in an awkward sort of way. Regardless of why Beca’s enjoying her conversation with him, Chloe feels sick to her stomach. She would much rather be talking to the brunette than be stuck watching  _ Jesse  _ talk to her. 

  


As soon as Jesse walks away, Chloe takes a hard swig of her beer and stumbles up the concrete steps until she’s standing directly in front of Beca. 

  


“Hi,” she says cheerily, quickly leaning forward until her nose is practically touching the younger girl’s. “I am  _ so  _ glad that I met you. I think that we’re gonna be really fast friends.”

  


She absentmindedly grabs onto Beca for support, because she’s fairly certain that she’ll fall backwards without some help. God, she’s so drunk. (She wouldn’t be talking to her new  _ friend  _ if she wasn’t).

  


“Yeah, well you saw me naked, so…” Beca trails off with a wink. 

  


It takes all of her willpower to not shout excitedly. Is the hot and edgy new girl actually flirting with her, or is she just reading the signals wrong? She’s not entirely sure because again, she is  _ so  _ drunk, so she decides to remove herself from the situation before she says or does anything that she might later regret.

  


“All right, I’m gonna go get a drink. This ginger needs her jiggle juice. See you later!” 

  


Glancing flirtatiously in Beca’s direction and raising her empty cup to the stars, Chloe briefly shakes her ass before sauntering back down the steps. 

  


“Make good choices!” Beca calls after her. 

  


That’s the last thing Chloe remembers.

  


***

  


The next thing Chloe knows, Beca is roughly shoving her against the wall, and her hands are tangled in the brunette’s hair. 

  


They’re kissing, but it isn’t at all how Chloe imagined it would be. It isn’t romantic, it’s sloppy and hungry and desperate and it tastes like an unholy mixture of beer and strawberries, but she honestly couldn’t possibly care less. She’s kissing  _ Beca Mitchell _ . This is all she’s wanted since the day they met at the activities fair a month ago.

  


It takes her another minute or so to realize that they’re standing right outside of her own apartment. She isn’t entirely certain how they got there, but she doesn’t question it. Chloe’s been dreaming of this moment for longer than she cares to admit, and even though she’s so unbelievably intoxicated that she’s actually using Beca for physical support, she wants this to happen very badly. Very,  _ very  _ badly.

  


So she says nothing, instead fumbling anxiously for her keys. Chloe quite literally drags Beca into her room and the freshman is kissing (biting) her neck and Chloe can’t breathe. The redhead’s lipstick is smudged almost comically on the younger girl’s face, but that’s a thought that Chloe can barely register. Her senses are far too preoccupied with the raw intensity of the situation.

  


Beca tugs off Chloe’s shirt, then her own, and suddenly they’re both completely naked and kissing in her bed. She stops thinking altogether. 

  


Chloe doesn’t remember anything after that.

  


***

  


The next morning, Beca is gone, and Chloe’s slightly convinced that the whole experience was just some alcohol-induced dream. 

  


Except she’s still not wearing any clothes, and there is a  _ giant  _ hickey on her neck. She tries to sit up in bed, but her hangover rudely reminds her that it isn’t a good idea to be upright just yet. She has a killer headache. There’s a bottle of advil and a small glass of water on her nightstand, both of which Chloe is definitely sure hadn’t been placed there by her. She thinks that maybe Beca left them, but then she sees the note stuck to the side of the pill bottle.

  


It reads, in large and loopy letters: For your hangover, you aca-bitch. XOXO, Aubrey

  


Instantly, Chloe starts to panic. When had Aubrey been in her room last night? Had she seen her and Beca hooking up? Or, at the very least, seen her leave the party with Beca? (If only she could remember how she had gotten from point a to b. That would be  _ super  _ helpful). God, that would be an absolute disaster. The blonde would never forgive her for ‘showing favoritism,’ or something else equally as ridiculous. 

  


Chloe groans audibly, takes an advil, and bangs her head against the wall. She can’t believe that she managed to get herself into this situation. She’s in love with Beca, for sure, but she actually took advantage of a  _ freshman _ . Oh, and if that wasn’t bad enough, she had yet  _ another  _ drunken hookup! 

  


This was definitely not how she’d initially pictured all of this going down. In her mind, there would have been candles and roses and maybe a Mariah Carey song playing in the background, and she would for sure be totally sober. Instead, her first night with Beca involved a lot of alcohol and a bunch of other stuff that she can’t even remember, so that’s just great. 

  


She ultimately decides that sitting around and wallowing in her own self-pity and guilt won’t do her any good, so she drags herself out of bed and hops into the shower. When she’s done, she feels at least a little better, but not a lot.

  


She still feels dirty.

  


Her phone dings on her bed as she’s towel-drying her hair, indicating a text (and twelve missed calls, half of them from the previous night) from Aubrey. Rolling her eyes, she unlocks her phone and calls her best friend back.

  


_ “Hello?” _

  


“Hey, Bree,” she says, doing her absolute best to sound bright and shiny and not at all like the slut she feels she is. 

  


_ “Chloe! Where the hell were you last night?”  _ It’s just like Aubrey to get right down to business.

  


“What do you mean?” Chloe asks innocently. “I was at Hood Night. You saw me there, remember?”

  


She hears Aubrey snort through the phone.  _ “Yeah, but you weren’t there for very long. I saw you talking to Beca-” _

  


Chloe squeezes her eyes shut as her heart leaps into her throat. This is the moment she’s been dreading since the first day of their senior year. The moment when Aubrey finally has to find out about her innocent little crush and oh my God oh my God  _ oh my God _ …

  


_ “-but then you left with Tom, so I wasn’t totally sure what you two were getting up to. What happened? Where did you guys go?” _

  


She hopes that her best friend doesn’t hear the sigh of relief that escapes her lips. “Um… don’t you know? Didn’t you leave the advil on my bedside table?”

  


_ “Oh, I left that there yesterday evening before we left for the party. I figured you’d end up needing it this morning.” _

  


Chloe can’t help but quietly gasp, totally offended by Aubrey’s comment. Sure, she is a notorious drinker, but she’s not bad enough that her best friend assumed she would have a hangover the next morning… right? (Wrong). 

  


_ “But seriously, Chloe. What happened last night? I called you like six times and you never picked up.” _

  


Wrestling with whether or not to be honest with the blonde, Chloe anxiously runs a hand through her still-wet hair. She ultimately decides to tweak the truth a little bit. “I’m not entirely sure?”

  


It’s not a lie, it’s just not one-hundred percent truthful.

  


_ “What?! Were you really that drunk?”  _ Judging solely by her tone of voice, Chloe knows that Aubrey is disappointed in her. 

  


It’s been awhile since she’s been so intoxicated that her memories are nothing if not hazy, (well… not really) but she definitely doesn’t remember much about last night, except flashes of Beca’s lips on her neck and her soft hands running all over her body and… 

  


“I was, yeah,” Chloe replies, clearing her throat. “It won’t happen again, I swear.”

  


_ “It better not! We need to be on top of our game if we plan to win at nationals this year.”  _

  


“I got it, Bree. I’ve learned from my mistake.” (She hasn’t. All she can think about are the various bits and pieces of the sex she had with Beca, and how badly she wants to create new memories so that she can actually recall everything).

  


_ “Good. I’ll see you at practice in an hour. Love you, bye.” _

  


Aubrey hangs up the phone and Chloe breathes another sigh of relief. So her best friend doesn’t know anything regarding her night with Beca. That’s good. She intends to keep it that way. As far as Aubrey can be concerned, Chloe was with Tom last night. She feels bad lying to her, but she’d much rather that the blonde never found out about what happened last night. She doesn’t even want to think about what would happen.

  


Anyway, Chloe would appreciate it if  _ she  _ would be able to find out just what happened last night. She remembers little moments, but she has no idea how her night changed from drinking her weight in beer to making out with the freshman against the hallway wall. She considers talking to Beca about it, although she’s scared that bringing it up will do nothing more than freak the brunette out. 

  


She quickly talks herself out of this crazy idea and continues getting ready. She’s halfway through applying her makeup when her phone chimes, signaling the arrival of a text. Her first assumption is that it’s Aubrey telling her to hurry up for practice, even though it doesn’t start for another forty minutes.

  


“I’m coming, Aubrey,” Chloe groans, rolling her eyes. 

  


But when she actually bothers to look at her phone, she discovers that the text isn’t from Aubrey at all. Not even close.

  


It’s from Beca.

  


**Beca**

_ Can we talk? _

  


***

  


They don’t talk about it. Chloe never answers the text message because the thought of discussing what happened between her and Beca makes her feel nauseated. So she speaks sparingly to the younger girl at Bellas practice, (which is difficult because things are going horribly and practice seems to never end) regardless of the fact that all she really wants to do is get some answers. 

  


After practice is over, Chloe tries to hastily leave the auditorium, but Beca is determined and grabs her arm before she can sneak off.

  


“We need to talk,” Beca says quietly, her dark blue eyes blazing.

  


“I’m sorry, I don’t have time.” Chloe is surprised by how unbelievably calm she sounds, when in reality alarm bells are going off inside of her head. (She is acutely aware that Aubrey is watching the exchange from a distance). 

  


She yanks her arm out of Beca’s grip and rushes from the building, leaving the freshman dumbstruck in the doorway. 

  


As she walks down the sidewalk towards her dorm, her stomach clenches with that all too familiar pang of guilt. She really can’t believe that she just walked away from Beca like that. It was rude and unnecessary and the thought of potentially hurting the younger girl’s feelings makes her stomach pain even more unbearable. 

  


God, Chloe is  _ such  _ an idiot.

  


In all honesty, they probably  _ should  _ talk about what happened between them last night, but Chloe’s so afraid that the minute they start the conversation she’ll be too focused on wanting to kiss Beca to pay attention to their discussion. She doesn’t want to do anything else that she’ll regret. 

  


She doesn’t exactly deal with crushes very well. She gets all awkward and uneasy and she finds it difficult to think rationally when dealing with the object of her affection, whomever that may be. That’s why this situation with Beca is so hard for her to handle. She is head-over-heels in love with the freshman, but she doesn’t understand how to cope with that,  _ especially  _ now that she got drunk and they ‘accidentally’ slept together. 

  


Chloe is so lost in her thoughts that she forgets to watch where she’s going, and she slams right into a tall young man that turns out to be Tom. Her mouth goes dry when she realizes that Aubrey saw her leave with him last night, so he very likely knows how she ended up with Beca.

  


“I am  _ so  _ sorry,” she gushes, desperately hoping that he doesn’t catch the (totally unnecessary, because he is a nice guy) fear in her eyes.

  


“It’s okay,” Tom replies, chuckling. “Hey, are you okay?”

  


Okay, she is  _ definitely  _ going to pull an Aubrey and throw up. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

  


The words come out sounding a lot less confident than Chloe had hoped that they would, but Tom seems to gloss over this. 

  


“Oh, you were just really drunk last night and I wanted to make sure that you got home without any trouble after I passed you on to your friend.”

  


It doesn’t feel possible, but Chloe’s mouth somehow goes even drier. “M-my friend?”

  


“Yeah, the brunette freshman from the shower that one day,” Tom explains. “The one with the incredible voice. What’s her name?”

  


“Beca,” Chloe says almost too quickly. She makes a mental note to kick herself later. 

  


“Right, right, Beca…” Tom nods. He suddenly narrows his eyes, concern written over every inch of his face. “Did something happen last night, Chloe? You’re acting weird.”

  


“No, of course not. Everything is fine. Thank you for asking.” There’s an awkward pause before Chloe breaks the silence. “Um… I really need to be going, if that’s okay with you. I have some homework and stuff I should get caught up on.”

  


“Yeah, of course.” Tom flashes his dazzling smile at her. “See you around, Beale.”

  


The only thing Chloe managed to take away from that conversation was the fact that Tom doesn’t appear to know anything about her night with Beca, which is simultaneously a relief and a colossal disappointment. She really wishes she could find out what happened without actually asking the other girl. 

  


As soon as she gets back to her dorm, Chloe locks the door and collapses onto her bed. Her head is still positively spinning and her stomach is painfully churning with a fiery combination of guilt and lust. Tears caused by a mixing pot of emotions spring to her eyes, but she hastily wipes them away. She doesn’t want to cry over this. 

  


Chloe is hopelessly in love with Beca, and she apparently acted on her feelings last night, but she’s no closer to having a genuine relationship with the younger girl than she was twenty-four hours ago. Instead of being honest when a legitimate opportunity presented itself, she just  _ had  _ to go and get drunk and sleep with the one person she hasn’t stopped thinking about for weeks. Oh, and she barely remembers that experience, which does nothing but make her feel worse.

  


(She knows that she’s focusing on that piece of the issue a little bit too much, but in all fairness, it does kind of suck that she can’t completely recall having sex with her hot and talented crush). 

  


The whole situation is just so messed up that it is physically hurting her. Seriously, her entire body aches whenever even the slightest thought of Beca crosses her mind. She considers taking something to help her sleep, hoping that knocking herself out will dull the pain, but that idea is a shocking reminder of the person she was over the summer, so she forces her brain to think about something else. Anything else.

  


It doesn’t work. She turns on the television and flips through the channels for twenty minutes before giving up and switching it back off. None of the songs on her iPod are sounding good to her right now either. She can’t seem to adequately distract herself. 

  


Her destructive summer habits are sticking with her like a parasite. It feels like an alarm is blaring inside of her head, continuously turning her focus back to the days she spent drowning her sorrows in vodka and cliche movies and anyone who seemed available. 

  


In this moment, as she is doing everything in her power to think about literally anything other than her situation with Beca, Chloe has the depressing realization that being in this position actually hurts worse than breaking up with Jacob. She feels dizzy, and she doesn’t stop the tears when they finally begin to slide down her face. 

  


She’s really fucked up this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd really appreciate feedback if anyone would be willing to give some! Have a great day!


	3. nobody is perfect (but everyone's to blame)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this is absolutely a filler chapter in the grand scheme of the actual plot to this story, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. 
> 
> Oh! In case anyone hadn't noticed, the chapter titles are all song lyrics. This chapter title comes from In My Veins by Andrew Belle. Great song, I would definitely recommend it if you don't already know it.

Aubrey is a mess, and Chloe isn’t sure what she’s supposed to do to help. The Bellas are an absolute disaster - no matter how hard any of them try, nothing seems to be turning out quite right - and the ever-present prospect of failure is clearly taking its toll on her best friend. They can’t be remembered as the two women who finally triggered the inevitable destruction of a once proud institution.

 

Chloe is plagued with a sickening desire to hurl every time her mind wanders back to their first real practice as a group. (The one that takes place after her…  _ encounter  _ with Beca). The girls very clearly try their bests to meet Aubrey’s intense and physically demanding standards, but it just isn’t working out as any of them had planned. No one appears to have an apparent strong suit besides vocal abilities, and it is increasingly obvious that their hearts aren’t in it. It’s getting a hell of a lot harder for her to stay optimistic regarding their chances at redeeming themselves. 

 

Against her better judgment, Chloe starts to believe that the Bellas don’t actually have the talent and precision required to win the ICCA’s, but a part of her continues to cling to any ounce of hope that she can grab ahold of. None of the girls are exceptionally fit, they’re not exactly the greatest when it comes to choreography, (especially Stacie, who wants to make everything far more sexually explicit than it really needs to be) and they seem to be having some difficulty cliquing as a team. Having hope in the face of overwhelming uncertainty is something that Chloe considers herself to be rather adept at, but watching several women who obviously don’t trust one another attempt to function as one musical entity is extremely discouraging. 

 

The final nail in the coffin, however, is their embarrassing performance at Sigma Beta Theta’s annual fall mixer. They perform so poorly that they are literally asked to stop and leave without payment. It’s  _ humiliating _ . To make matters even worse, Chloe was diagnosed with vocal nodules earlier in the week, which she forces herself to admit to the Bellas. She’s more upset by this news than anyone can really understand, mainly because being a singer and remaining a part of this acapella group is her only ticket to getting close to Beca without involving alcohol. If she can’t sing, then she is screwed. 

 

She desperately wants to form a real relationship with the younger girl, (she’s even willing to start out as friends and gradually evolve into something else, honestly) but doing so is more than a little bit difficult when her entire life becomes about winning the ICCA’s, per Aubrey’s constant and relentless demands. 

 

Oh, and Aubrey is beyond furious with her because of the nodes. The blonde seems to somewhat understand that they are a medical condition that Chloe has absolutely no control over, but Aubrey also seems to see them as nothing more than an unfortunate obstacle standing in their way of victory. Her best friend can’t blame medicine and science for their probable loss, so she takes to blaming Chloe behind the scenes. 

 

It’s the arguments that the two women have during this season of their lives that make Chloe wonder why they were ever close in the first place. 

 

(If Aubrey is angry with her for developing nodes, Chloe doesn’t even want to think about how upset she would be if she ever found out about the sex with Beca). 

 

They have known one another for several years, and they have experienced many ups and downs as a pair, but their friendship has never been more strained. Aubrey is obsessive and controlling and stressed enough that she takes to snapping at anyone who dares cross her. Chloe’s not entirely sure that she even truly knows the blonde anymore. It sucks. 

 

Despite the epic mess that is the Bellas and her slowly but surely deteriorating relationship with Aubrey, Chloe somehow manages to make time for Beca. The two women begin to text frequently, usually discussing their various classes or music that they think the other person will enjoy. They never talk about their night together, regardless of how badly Chloe wants to. 

 

She loves that she is growing close to Beca, because this is all that she really wants, but she’s pretty sure that leaving the topic of sex untouched is actual torture. It’s a can of worms that Chloe doesn’t necessarily  _ want  _ opened, but the silence is so much worse. The lack of discussion leaves her imagination with room to wander freely, and she can’t help but speculate and dream and fantasize and  _ pine  _ for the younger girl.

 

(Does Beca think about her late at night when she’s drunk and can’t sleep, like Chloe thinks of her? Probably not).

 

Their friendship is one that stays behind closed doors, mostly due to the fact that Chloe and Aubrey aren’t exactly on the best of terms at the moment, and it’s no secret that the blonde doesn’t care for Beca. (There’s also the issue of the image that Beca wants to maintain, and it’s one that will definitely be damaged if people found out that she was getting close to Captain Sunshine, but she would never admit this to the redhead, who knows anyway). Chloe wishes that she could further their blossoming friendship in front of the others, but they both agree that, considering the circumstances, it would be the most beneficial for the most people if they kept things a little more… lowkey. (In other words - what they had was nothing more than a one-night stand). 

 

Not unlike many other facets of her current life, this sucks. 

 

Chloe tries not to focus on all of this as she and the other Bellas attend this year’s Riff-Off, which takes place in an emptied-out concrete swimming pool. The nights are finally starting to grow colder as fall is rapidly drawing to a close, and she involuntarily shivers. She wishes she’d brought a warmer jacket, but there’s no going back now.

 

Surprisingly, the girls are  _ super  _ into the whole concept of the Riff-Off, and  _ miraculously _ , they are actually holding their own against the other groups. It feels almost too good to be true, but Chloe just kind of rolls with it. Like Aubrey, she most definitely enjoys winning, even if her entire life doesn’t revolve around whether or not they are victorious. 

 

The Bellas power through several different categories and more than their fair share of songs, but it seems as though every time they have the chance to carry a tune, the Treblemakers beat them to the punch. Every song that they sing is interrupted by their male counterparts, which everyone is getting extremely frustrated with. It’s hard to prove a point when they keep getting cut off.

 

This seemingly endless cycle continues until Beca runs forward and just starts straight up  _ rapping _ . The Bellas are shocked, Chloe included. (She’s pretty sure that no one is as surprised as she is. This isn’t anything like the Beca she’s come to know). Her mouth hangs open as she watches her new friend awkwardly struggle through the lyrics to No Diggity. 

 

She’s never been more in love with the younger girl. 

 

The entire pool has gone quiet. Everyone is staring at the freshman with a mixture of incredulity and amusement. Beca pauses, turning around and wordlessly begging the other girls to join in on her song. Her face is lit up in a broad and expectant grin, evidently unfazed by the fact that the other acapella groups are seriously judging her. She begins to sing the chorus of the song and, by some sort of a miracle, the rest of the Bellas gradually begin to sing along with her. 

 

It’s the strangest experience, and it’s something that the Bellas of old  _ never  _ would have done, but Chloe couldn’t possibly care less. The Bellas are actually melding together as a group, and they sound  _ fantastic _ . Beca carries the girls through the remainder of the song, laughing as the onlookers join in as well. It’s a few minutes of pure, unadulterated bliss before they finish and the emcee disqualifies them because Beca didn’t match the correct word. 

 

Chloe and the other girls are understandably outraged by the outcome, because they  _ clearly  _ deserved to win the Riff-Off, but there isn’t anything they can do about it besides celebrate their newfound unity. 

 

Only one member of the Barden Bellas isn’t pleased with the events of the Riff-Off: Aubrey. She is still hell bent on sticking to tradition, which is an agenda that offers absolutely no room for popular rap music, regardless of how much fun the girls have singing those sorts of songs. Chloe watches from the sidelines as Aubrey’s quiet hatred for Beca and her alternative style nears carrying capacity, and makes the wise decision to keep her developing friendship with the younger girl a secret for a little while longer. 

 

***

 

Because Aubrey is still effectively in charge, the Bellas attend regionals and perform a startlingly bland set that somehow manages to land them a spot at the semi-finals. The semi-finals roll around and they perform the same insufferably boring songs, but Beca throws in her own (unapproved and unexpected) twist. 

 

The Bellas place third at semi-finals and do not advance to the ICCA’s, a failure which Aubrey is all too eager to blame Beca for. (To be fair, Beca’s improvisation does catch them all by surprise, and it  _ is  _ a show of blatant disrespect for her two captains).

 

The freshman doesn’t wait around for Aubrey to berate her any further. She snaps at the older girl, fires an unnecessary comment (that truly burns) at Chloe, and up and quits the Bellas. This leaves the rest of the girls speechless, but Aubrey is clearly pleased that she won’t be forced to deal with Beca anymore. Their failure is Beca’s fault, not the blonde’s. 

 

But despite what many others might think, Chloe is not an idiot. She knows that Aubrey is gradually becoming more and more self-aware. She knows that the blonde isn’t exceptionally proud of her achievements as co-captain of the Barden Bellas, and she is desperately grasping at straws, hoping to let  _ anyone  _ but herself take the fall for their descent into utter and complete humiliation.

 

As a group, they’ve been teetering on that precipice for longer than either of the captains are willing to admit. The way Chloe sees it, Aubrey got everyone dangerously close to the edge, but Beca is the one who kicked them all into the void. 

 

Not to be dramatic, but Chloe’s fairly certain that her life is officially over. Again.

 

Almost as if losing their one shot at redemption isn’t bad enough, Beca somehow manages to get herself arrested, and she calls  _ Jesse  _ to come pick her up instead of Chloe. The older girl tries to pretend as if she couldn’t possibly care less, but she’s already devastated by the untimely end of her acapella journey, and her friend’s apparent lack of trust feels like a slap in the face. 

 

She somehow equates this to losing the younger girl as a friend, which she understands is a little ridiculous, but Beca isn’t part of the Bellas anymore. Beca probably wants nothing to do with her, considering that there isn’t anything tying them together. Beca trusts Jesse, the overeager Treblemaker with a cliche movie obsession more than she trusts Chloe, the girl who was slowly crossing the line from acquaintance to friend. 

 

Such a realization cuts into her far more deeply than she would have expected it to, so Chloe makes the adult decision to remove herself from the rest of the world and spend the evening cuddling with a box of overpriced chocolates and a bottle of red wine. 

 

After her third glass, (because despite what others - Aubrey - might think, Chloe most definitely has enough dignity left to refrain from drinking straight from the bottle) she rests her head against the wall and places the empty glass on her nightstand, next to a growing pile of unfinished assignments. 

 

She feels like crying. Or screaming. Or both. God, she can’t believe she’s in this place. She can’t believe it’s all falling apart, after everything she’s done to be better. 

 

Once again, she is back to drinking her sorrows away instead of facing them head on. She’s not proud of this regression, by any means, but it does feel a hell of a lot better than actually allowing her brain to register the pain of loneliness and rejection. 

 

Out of the corner of her eye, Chloe catches sight of the empty wine glass. Her emotions start to grow more and more overwhelming until her chest is suddenly so tight that she can barely breathe. She struggles for air, but she can’t take it anymore. Letting out a strangled scream, Chloe picks up the glass and hurls it at the wall. 

 

It shatters. She finally starts to cry, but she doesn’t feel like she’s suffocating under the weight of her troubles anymore. She can breathe, at least a little bit.

 

She lets the tears fall until she doesn’t have any more tears to cry. The tired feeling takes over and she closes her eyes to go to sleep, quietly swearing up and down that tonight will be the last night that she acts like this. 

 

Maybe if Chloe keeps lying to herself, some of the lies might become truths.

 

***

 

By some cruel twist of fate, Aubrey seems to think that Chloe is on  _ her  _ side throughout all of this. She genuinely believes that the redhead supports her position in the situation, rather than Beca, the girl that Chloe just so happens to be hopelessly in love with. 

 

God, she really didn’t think that her best friend could possibly be this stupid.

 

She decides not to tell Aubrey how she really feels. She’s been watching her friendship with the blonde slowly decay for months. It doesn’t exactly strike her as helpful to just make things worse between them. 

 

Chloe hasn’t spoken to Beca for exactly two weeks, three days, and fourteen hours. Actually, she hasn’t spoken to  _ any  _ of the Bellas (save for Aubrey) for that long. After their falling out at the semi-finals, she retreated back to her apartment and decided to stay there with more wine and chocolate until somebody came looking for her. 

 

Nobody comes looking for her. Not even Aubrey, her very best friend in the whole world, because the Bellas have all done essentially the same thing that she has done: they’ve sunken back into their old lives and routines as they find new and strange ways to mourn the loss that they have all suffered. The people Chloe is supposed to have been friends with for  _ life  _ no longer seem to want anything to do with one another.

 

It makes her sick. What happened to their sense of loyalty? What happened to all of that ‘sisters forever’ nonsense? Why can’t they just sit down and discuss what happened and where they went wrong as a group  _ like adults _ , instead of constantly pointing fingers at each other and letting somebody else take the fall for their own mistakes?

 

Chloe knows that she is a far cry from perfect, and so are the rest of the girls. She has made her fair share of mistakes over the years regarding the Bellas, and so has Aubrey. Beca messed up, for sure, but is she really the only one that they can place any of the blame on? All the younger girl was trying to do was make her voice heard… make  _ all  _ of their voices heard.

 

She tries pointing this out to Aubrey shortly after the events at the semi-finals take place. Not surprisingly, her best friend blows up in her face and shoots down her points. Both girls go their separate ways after that. It’s a bittersweet ending to a friendship she intended to make last forever, but she supposes that all good things must eventually come to an end. 

 

Besides, losing Aubrey has been a long time coming - she can trace the beginning of the slow but steady decay of their friendship all the way back to the incident with Jacob. So yes, the apparent end of the greatest friendship she’s ever had certainly sucks, but she still really should have expected the way things turned out. 

 

This thought doesn’t make it hurt any less.

 

***

 

The weeks that follow are some of the very worst of Chloe’s life (and that is including last summer, which she spent the majority of drowning in booze and debauchery). She doesn’t exactly have Aubrey to count on, her grades are tanking, and Beca stopped answering her texts after only a few days following semi-finals. It appears as though she’s also lost that friendship, and she’s ashamed to say that she doesn’t know which causes her the most pain. 

 

She spends her days skipping classes to watch movies and her nights drinking with strangers she plans to never see again. For a little bit, it helps. The lack of familiarity in her life is strangely therapeutic, in a way. It’s nice to not owe anyone any of her time and energy. It’s nice to live in the moment and not have to worry about what comes next.

 

But this lifestyle quickly becomes tedious and boring, so Chloe stops when she finds the shards of that broken wine glass in the drawer of her nightstand. She can’t quite remember how they got there, but the sight of them is enough to shock her back to reality. She quits drinking and resolves to do something (anything) else. 

 

(At this point, Chloe vaguely recognizes that she’s quit drinking so many times that the general  _ idea  _ of quitting ceases to have any real value to her). 

 

Since she is effectively alone and no longer has any reason to sing, Chloe makes (what she considers to be) the bold decision to have surgery to remove her nodes. It’s a risk, for sure, but the Bellas are over. She doesn’t need to be performance ready at the drop of a hat anymore. It doesn’t matter. 

 

Quite honestly, she is having a great deal of trouble convincing herself that really anything matters. 

 

Okay, maybe she  _ is  _ being ridiculous, but things are looking pretty bleak at the moment. (Like  _ really  _ bleak - she’s spent the last two days in a hospital, unable to talk and having nothing else to eat save for crummy hospital food and enough jello cups to fill the empty swimming pool at Barden). She misses Aubrey and Beca and the rest of her friends so badly that it’s getting difficult to get out of bed in the morning. She just wants her life to go back to normal. She would literally sell her soul if every aspect of her life could just be the same as it was a couple of weeks ago. That would be  _ awesome _ .

 

When she gets the text from Aubrey explaining that one of the groups that actually did advance to the finals was disqualified, Chloe is beyond ecstatic. It’s a real shame that she can’t verbally express her elation due to the recovery period she’s in after her surgery, because she hasn’t had a reason to shout this excitedly in a long time. They’re  _ in _ . They have a second chance to prove themselves to the rest of the collegiate acapella groups and to the whole damn country. They have another shot at being friends and, more importantly, she has another opportunity to get together with Beca. 

 

Chloe knows that it isn’t exactly the best idea she has ever had, especially considering the fact that Aubrey will literally have an aneurysm when she finds out, but she texts Beca the news. It is her naive hope that the younger girl will answer her. The redhead has been admittedly depressed for weeks, (and she won’t hesitate to claim that a fair chunk of her sadness has been brought on by events involving Beca) yet she is still clinging to some shred of optimism regarding the brown-haired freshman with the voice of a damn angel. She is convinced (against her better judgment) that Beca will get back to her. The other girl will be just as excited about this development as she is. 

 

Beca doesn’t text her back. Chloe tries not to be too disappointed, but she opens a fresh bottle of wine the second she gets home from the hospital and drinks until she can’t feel anything except for absolutely nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! If you have any questions, concerns, or general feedback, don't hesitate to let me know!


	4. don't blame me (love made me crazy)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter depicts Beca's version of events thus far. Enjoy!

Beca Mitchell is many,  _ many  _ things, (just ask either of her parents or any boyfriend she’s ever had) but she is not a people person, she isn’t really into women, and she most certainly is  _ not  _ a singer, thank you very much. 

 

She never stopped to consider the possibility that one person could change  _ all  _ of these things about her.

 

She meets the girl with the red hair and startlingly bright blue eyes on her first day at Barden University, and if she’s being completely honest, she doesn’t look at her twice. This girl is just another face in a sea of overbearing upperclassmen hellbent on getting unsuspecting freshmen to join whatever stupid club they’re representing. (In the case of the redhead, the club is a fucking all-girls acapella group, which is  _ so  _ lame. The blonde the redhead is with practically bites Beca’s head off when she points this out, so she makes the smart decision to remove herself from the situation. As far as she is concerned, she would much rather shove an icepick into her eye than interact with either one of those girls ever again).

 

Okay, so maybe an acapella group isn’t as dumb as she makes it out to be, (and maybe the icepick thing is an exaggeration) but that definitely isn’t the kind of music that Beca is interested in making. Her dream is to move to LA and become a music producer, which her dad thinks is ridiculous but honestly fuck him, she’s going to do whatever the hell she wants to do. It’s her life, and she’s going to live it as she damn well pleases. 

 

That’s exactly what she does. 

 

She gets a job at the campus radio station and makes friends (a bit of a loose term at the moment, but that could change) with another freshman, Jesse, who is cute in a boy-next-door kind of a way. He’s smart and funny and incredibly sweet, but Beca would  _ never  _ admit that to him. That would only give him more confidence, and quite frankly, the guy really doesn’t need any more of that. It’s so much easier if she just continues to pretend that his presence bores her. (It doesn’t, she finds him peculiarly endearing, but he  _ definitely  _ doesn’t need to know  _ that _ ). 

 

Jesse is convinced that he and Beca will evolve into a power couple for the ages, and she never outright agrees or disagrees with him. He’s a really nice guy (even though his movie obsession can be classified as only one thing: obnoxious). A girl could do worse. A  _ lot  _ worse. 

 

(For example, she had a boyfriend in high school who never took her anywhere besides the shitty vegan restaurant his dad owned and kissed like a fish gasping for air. But she digresses). 

 

All things considered, her college experience has been relatively normal thus far. Her roommate (who kind of sucks, by the way) is never around, she hasn’t had the chance to make a whole lot of friends besides Jesse, (she needs to fix that ASAP - one more movie and she’ll lose her damn mind) and her classes (when actually she bothers to go to them) aren’t  _ too  _ difficult. School and academics in general aren’t exactly Beca’s forte, but she’s managing. 

 

Everything is just fine. 

 

A couple of weeks have passed since the activities fair on her first day. To put it lightly, this is when things get  _ really fucking weird. _

 

Beca always assumed that college involved people cheering and crushing red solo cups while someone chugs a shit ton of alcohol, walking in on unannounced make-out sessions more often than is necessary, and basking in the glorious time away from parents and their rules and regulations. She did  _ not  _ know that college also involves random girls casually strolling (uninvited) into occupied shower stalls. That was a new one for her. 

 

“Ha!” the girl in question exclaims, making her presence known and causing Beca to scream and attempt to cover herself with literally anything. “You  _ can  _ sing!”

 

‘Uncomfortable’ is a familiar concept for Beca - her parents are divorced and absolutely do not get along - but this situation is entirely new territory in every conceivable way. 

 

There is a girl standing in her fucking shower stall.  _ Naked _ .

 

For a split second, Beca is confused and embarrassed and annoyed all at once, but then it processes. It’s the girl from the activities fair. The redhead in the acapella group - what were they called, the Barden Bellas? - that Beca had turned down because she  _ doesn’t sing _ . Well, she’d walked into the shower singing today so that was obviously a lie, and after this  _ serious  _ invasion of privacy (God, doesn’t this girl understand boundaries?) she won’t be making that mistake again. 

 

(‘Confused’ once again becomes the dominant emotion in her mind as soon as she realizes that the older girl is looking at Beca like she can see her future. It’s ever so slightly super fucking creepy).

 

The girl demands that Beca continue to sing, or else she won’t leave. Beca reluctantly agrees, and she finds that her voice combined with the redhead’s actually sounds relatively decent. It’s really a shame when the moment is ruined by the arrival of some guy who is apparently with the other girl  _ also  _ barging into her shower. 

 

The other girl finally leaves and all Beca can think about for the next several days is the way that the redhead was staring at her with those big, blinky blue eyes. (Again - like gazing at Beca was equivalent to looking the rest of her life in the face). She convinces herself that her fixation on that incident in the shower is completely innocent, and just a reaction to a (slightly) traumatizing experience.

 

It’s not.

 

***

 

Okay, so maybe she caves and auditions for the Barden Bellas, and  _ maybe  _ it has something to do with the redhead from the shower, (whose name she now knows is Chloe) but she decides that it was all for the best. She’s putting herself out there, making friends. 

 

Her dad keeps encouraging her to try new things, maybe something that she wouldn’t usually be interested in doing. Well, as far as she’s concerned, joining an all-female acapella group definitely falls under the category of ‘things she wouldn’t normally do,’ and she hopes that this decision will get him off her case for the time being. 

 

The Bellas are a pretty cool group of girls, despite the fact that the other captain, Aubrey, is batshit crazy and is also probably the most uptight person that Beca has ever met. The initiation ceremony was pretty freaky too, but she thinks it would be better if she just rolls with it and stops asking so many questions. The Bellas are a safe option for her. It’s unfamiliar and weird and honestly makes her kind of uncomfortable, but acapella is something that she thinks she could learn to love. Eventually. 

 

It sounds strange, but Beca can’t shake the feeling that, because of the Bellas becoming an integral part of her life, things are about to take a (potentially dangerous) turn. She really didn’t think that turn would be off of a fucking cliff. 

 

Chloe and Aubrey take the other girls to a party after initiation, and it’s Beca’s first  _ real  _ college party, (she’s not counting that one time in junior year of high school when her cousin Gabby snuck them into her older brother’s frat) so she is admittedly rather excited. When they get there, most of the other acapella groups are already super drunk, regardless of their age, including Jesse (who is apparently a Treblemaker now?). He walks (falls) up to Beca and claims that the two of them are going to have aca-children or whatever, simply because they have both joined the two rival acapella groups at Barden. She chalks this uncalled for revelation up to the fact that he is  _ very  _ intoxicated and  _ very  _ Jesse, so she just forces a smile, nods, and shrugs it off. 

 

Beca can’t help but notice how much Chloe is drinking. Seriously, they’ve been at this party for all of twenty minutes and the redhead is well on her way to being, as her dad so eloquently puts it, ‘slam-dunk drunk.’ Almost immediately after she makes this observation, Chloe stumbles up to her and stands so close that Beca can smell the alcohol (it’s tequila, which is strange because Beca would have pegged her as a vodka girl, but that’s really not relevant) on her breath. The older girl is physically leaning on her for support, and she mumbles something about the two of them becoming ‘fast friends,’ but it goes in one ear and out the other.

 

All Beca can focus on (for some reason) is the proximity of Chloe’s lips to hers and the growing desire that she has to kiss her and-

 

She wants to slap herself. Chloe is her  _ captain _ . Chloe is her ‘sister for life’ or her friend or whatever. She can’t be lusting after this girl (whom she has already seen naked, which does nothing but further complicate essentially  _ everything _ ) when this is clearly not the path that the universe has designated for their relationship. Also, Beca has Jesse, her sort-of potentially could be boyfriend. This is wrong, and not ‘go to bed with socks on’ wrong. 

 

No, this is ‘pouring the milk into the cereal bowl  _ before  _ the cereal’ or ‘shoplifting that pair of sunglasses because they’re cute but a smidge too expensive’ wrong. 

 

There is also the slight issue of Beca not necessarily liking girls. (Okay, well, she’s never really thought about it all that much). But damn, if she were to cross the line for somebody, it would absolutely be with a girl like Chloe… 

 

When the redhead walks away to get another drink and quickly begins (heatedly, they’re practically licking one another’s faces) making out with some random guy, Beca finds that she can’t really breathe. She came to this party to have a good time and hopefully meet some new and interesting people, but now all she can think about is switching places with Chloe’s kissing buddy.

 

She assumes that these thoughts were brought on by the shower interaction. She doesn’t usually (or ever, actually) want to act on any feelings of attraction for another woman, but this is different. Maybe it’s because she and Chloe have been naked together and she knows what she’s missing out on? Beca isn’t sure, and the mixture of confusion and uncertainty she’s exhibiting in this situation is humiliating. 

 

Beca is eighteen years old. She’s a freshman in college, this is her first taste of real life outside the four walls of her high school. She doesn’t like admitting it, but she recognizes that she is inexperienced. She knows that she has a great deal to learn before she can consider herself to be a genuine adult. There is so,  _ so  _ much that Beca doesn’t understand - there is so much that she probably never will understand - and she is starting to come to terms with that. 

 

She is naive, yes, but she is certainly more than capable of ascertaining the difference between love and lust. Her feelings for Chloe? Absolutely nothing but lust. 

 

She continues to watch Chloe and her mystery man, finding that she is  _ increasingly  _ interested in being the person whose face the redhead is basically sucking on. (Okay, that sounds kind of gross, but still). This desire is accompanied by thoughts that make her supremely grateful for the nonexistence of mind-reading. Yes, her feelings for Chloe are most definitely not affectionate, they’re borderline destructive.

 

It’s suddenly very important that Beca get  _ very  _ drunk, so she grabs herself a beer and starts chugging away without a second thought.

 

***

 

Beca is stumbling back to her dorm when she sees Chloe on the opposite side of the path. The older girl is with a guy, presumably the one she had been making out with, and they’re both clearly quite intoxicated. (Then again, so is Beca).

 

She doesn’t drink often, (who does she have to drink with, her dad?) but when she does, boy do her decision-making skills go flying out the window. Headfirst. Without a parachute. 

 

“Chloe!” she calls out and the redhead whips around in search of the voice.

 

“Hi!” Chloe yells excitedly when she catches sight of Beca. She runs towards the younger girl, falling several times in the process. She is  _ definitely  _ not a graceful drunk, to say the very least. 

 

The freshman laughs heartily in response, (God, that girl is such a labrador) helping the redhead up off of the ground. “Where are you going?”

 

“I’m taking her home,” the guy that Chloe is with says before she can answer. He’s caught up with the redhead and is, at first glance, considerably more sober than she (or Beca) is.

 

Okay, does she really want Chloe going home with  _ this  _ dude? Beca’s first impression upon giving him a quick once over is that he isn’t even that cute, and she instantly makes the snap judgment that he is not the right person for her new captain. (She is, but that might just be the alcohol talking. She had a  _ lot  _ to drink). 

 

“I can do that,” Beca immediately blurts out without stopping to think about what she’s saying. 

 

Somewhere deep inside of her head, the small part of her brain that isn’t totally drenched in alcohol screams at her to retract that offer and just go home, take an aspirin, and go to bed. The rest of her brain yells at that portion to shut the hell up. 

 

Chloe’s face lights up as soon as the words leave Beca’s mouth. “Yeah! Yeah, she can take me home. We’re  _ friends _ , Tom.”

 

The older girl starts to giggle when she says ‘friends,’ but the freshman doesn’t currently possess the proper analytical skills required to wonder why. 

 

“You sure?” Tom is frowning as he glances between the two women, seemingly attempting to gauge whether or not their blood-alcohol levels are low enough for them to even remember the way home.

 

“She’s sure,” Beca says quickly, (Chloe nods affirmatively) and that little sliver of her brain pipes up again, asking why she’s doing this.

 

She doesn’t know. (Yes she does). 

 

***

 

It takes the two of them a little longer than it technically should have to get back to Chloe’s apartment. (They made more than a few wrong turns, despite the redhead insisting that they were for sure headed in the right direction  _ this  _ time). When they finally do reach her door, both girls are breathless (they ran to hide from campus security at one point, but that is a story for another time) and flushed. 

 

Chloe’s kind of sweaty and there’s a stain on her shirt, (probably tequila) but Beca (relying on her astute drunk perception) is fairly certain that she has never seen a hotter girl  _ ever _ . 

 

“Thanks for helping me get home, Becs,” Chloe says quietly, her voice coming out raspy. 

 

The older girl is staring at her with a look in her eyes that Beca has seen before in the eyes of plenty of men: pure and unadulterated desire. Beca swallows hard when the redhead’s eyes flick down to her lips, and she suddenly can’t take it anymore. She shoves Chloe up against the wall and kisses her. Hard.

 

Okay, so maybe trying to drown her unabashed coveting in booze wasn’t necessarily her greatest idea ever. Sue her. 

 

The kiss is sloppy and wet (which she’d normally find gross, but this is  _ Chloe _ ) and completely unlike anything she has experienced to date. She can taste the residual beer on her own mouth and something (strawberries, perhaps?) from Chloe’s. The older girl’s lips are softer than those of the men she has made out with in the past, and it’s a welcome change that doesn’t take any getting used to. 

 

They stand there for a few minutes (she barely registers that the redhead is using her as physical support for the second time that night) until Chloe fumbles for her keys and practically drags (throws) Beca into her apartment. 

 

Caught up in the moment, Beca tugs off Chloe’s tequila-stained shirt, followed by her own. She considers asking the older girl if she’s  _ sure  _ that she wants this, but Chloe is kissing her with such ferocity and hunger that she doesn’t think twice. Chloe  _ clearly  _ wants this. This is actually happening. 

 

The situation gradually escalates before the two women are almost completely naked and kissing on Chloe’s bed and the older girl is on top of her and oh my  _ God _ , she really can’t breathe. Beca finds that her brain has honestly turned itself off at this point. She’s just going with the flow without stopping to contemplate her decisions. 

 

The high that she feels each time Chloe touches her is  _ insane _ . There really is no other word for it - it’s practically indescribable. Being with Chloe is nothing like being with any of her past flings and boyfriends. It feels like she’s drowning and coming up for fresh air all at once. Like she has been sleeping for years and she is suddenly wide awake. She’s honestly never had a better experience, and she’s (childishly) disappointed when it’s over.

 

Once her blind ecstasy fades, she also can’t believe that she actually crossed this line. 

 

Chloe falls asleep fairly quickly, and Beca takes this opportunity to leave the redhead’s apartment. The walk of shame is never fun, but she just slept with her captain and potential friend, so she can reasonably assume that staying would do nothing but further complicate things. 

 

The more she dwells on it, the more she realizes that such an amazing night might have been a huge mistake. God, what the hell is Aubrey going to do when she finds out? Accuse her of ‘corrupting Chloe,’ probably. 

 

Maybe she’s gone too far this time.

 

***

 

Beca tries to talk about it with the older girl - she wants to apologize for leaving, explain her actions in general, do  _ something  _ to alleviate the tension she is certain will exist between them forever - but Chloe doesn’t give her the chance. She never gives her the chance. 

 

Their first Bellas’ practice is scheduled the morning after her night with Chloe, and the redhead is uncharacteristically indifferent to her. It’s uncomfortable because Beca is itching to say everything that has been coursing through her mind since she left the apartment, but Chloe clearly has no interest in discussing things.

 

Weeks pass by, and they continue to leave Pandora’s box tightly sealed.

 

They somehow manage to develop a real friendship without touching upon the obvious problem: their inability to freely and openly have an adult conversation regarding sex. Still, Beca quickly finds that she has grown incredibly close to the older girl, and despite the lack of complete honesty, she realizes that she hasn’t been quite this happy in years.

 

It embarrasses her to admit it, but Chloe is her first  _ real  _ female friend. (Not counting any family members or Amy, because her relationship with Amy is significantly different than the one she shares with Chloe). She doesn’t totally understand how close friendships work, and she is  _ definitely  _ unfamiliar with the concept of becoming friends with someone  _ after _ sleeping with them. Despite this, she’s having the time of her life.

 

Something is a little (a lot, actually) off about the redhead, though - something that Beca can’t quite put her finger on. She doesn’t seem totally okay, and the brunette assumes that this has to do with their night together. Well, Beca is personally (more or less) perfectly fine. Just really fucking confused. 

 

Anyway, Chloe is amazing. Like, hand to God, Chloe is probably the single greatest person she has ever met. The redhead is intelligent, wildly talented, kind, funny, and so wonderful to be around. Beca learns that she can talk to Chloe about virtually anything and everything, (save for that one  _ minor  _ subject) and they do. 

 

They text  _ constantly _ , even when Beca is in class, at the radio station, or suffering through yet another of Jesse’s movies. These frequent conversations enable her to learn a great deal about the older girl rather quickly, which feels strangely surreal. She discovers that Chloe’s favorite color is blue, (because it matches her eyes) she has an older sister named Cassie, she loves all types of music, (the exception being classic country) and she is  _ terribly  _ allergic to cats.

 

In turn, Beca tells Chloe that her friends have traditionally been guys, she is afraid of the dark because of a movie her dad let her watch when she was eight, she doesn’t like pepperoni on pizza, and she’s  _ always  _ wanted a dog. (Her parents wouldn’t let her have one as a little kid because her dad is allergic). Opening up to another person like this feels weird, but it is also freeing. She realizes that, despite any initial qualms that she might have had regarding good friends in college, Chloe is someone that she is growing to love - in a platonic way, of course.

 

It’s weird - they keep their friendship from Aubrey. Beca’s fairly sure that that has to do with Aubrey’s general dislike for her as a human being, and Chloe’s need for validation and approval from her best friend. Building a friendship behind closed doors is not necessarily ideal, but it’s still a wonderful experience because it is  _ Chloe _ .

 

The two of them could become friends in prison or at a craft fair in New Jersey, and Beca wouldn’t even mind. 

 

As she continues to get closer to Chloe, she also finds herself spending a fair amount of time with Jesse. He’s still a bit of an idiot and is probably the cheesiest person she’s ever met, but he’s sweet and funny and feels like the least complicated option for her. (After watching her parents go through hell in their divorce, she definitely wants a  _ safe  _ relationship).

 

For awhile, Beca is confident that things are going pretty damn well in her life. But, as fate is a truly heartless bitch, everything obviously comes crashing down around her - and it’s entirely her own fucking fault. 

 

***   
  


To be fair, Beca does genuinely try to do her part within the Bellas, but she is not a pushover, and she is definitely not a fan of playing nice and letting Aubrey walk all over her.

 

Did she realize that her improvised stunt at semi-finals would hinder rather than help their success? No, she  _ absolutely  _ believed that she was improving upon an outdated, snoozefest of a routine. (Let the record show that she was). Should she have probably ran her idea past the captains first? As much as it pains her to admit, yes. She should have. 

 

If she had, maybe they wouldn’t be in this mess. Maybe she wouldn’t have gotten herself arrested. Maybe Jesse wouldn’t be avoiding her, and when she did see him, he wouldn’t be looking at her with disappointment and disdain. Maybe she would still be friends with any one of the Bellas, all of whom she misses more than words can accurately convey.

 

Most of all, maybe she wouldn’t have had to cut ties with Chloe, because she’s almost entirely certain that the older girl is on Aubrey’s side. Beca spent such a huge chunk of her freshman year of college opening herself up to the redhead, only to lose her in the end.

 

It really fucking sucks.

 

She spends quite some time (pathetically) moping around her dorm room and contemplating whether or not it would be worth it to at the very least attempt to mend fences with some of the girls. Eventually, she decides to call Amy, but the Australian doesn’t answer. Beca tries not to take this too personally. (She fails).

 

Weeks go by, then she finally hears from one of the Bellas - and it’s Chloe. 

 

It’s a text explaining that the Bellas are getting back together. Apparently one of the teams that actually made it to the ICCA’s was disqualified because of an underage member, so the girls gained a spot by default. If Beca wants to participate, she can meet them in the auditorium for practice in a few days.

 

She doesn’t answer Chloe, mostly because she doesn’t know how to explain to the older girl that life after the Bellas has felt like she’s been slowly drifting through time and space. She doesn’t want to admit that the girls have become such an integral part of her as a person, because regardless of how much she has shared, vulnerability is still one of her biggest flaws. 

 

Actually, okay, Beca honestly just doesn’t want to face Aubrey. She just  _ knows  _ that the blonde will want some ridiculous apology filled to the brim with hero-worship and self-deprecating remarks, and she’s not really feeling that. 

 

When practice day rolls around, she sits on her bed and stares at her shoes for the better part of an hour. She can’t decide whether or not she should go. The looming threat that is Aubrey Posen hangs over her like an anvil, and she has fallen so far down the rabbit hole of doubt that she is seriously considering deleting all of their phone contacts and continuing the remainder of college as a friendless recluse.

 

Her phone buzzes, startling her out of her descent into her favorite place: the land of overthinking every little fucking thing even if half of the potential end scenarios she comes up with don’t actually make any damn sense. 

 

**Chloe**

_ Are you coming today? _

 

Oh, what the hell. Beca hastily tugs on her shoes, grabs her bag off the chair, and rushes from the room. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, I would certainly love to hear from you! Have an excellent day!


	5. love's strange (so real in the dark)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, sorry this took so long. Things have been a little crazy with school. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Chloe doesn’t believe in miracles, but she almost feels like now she has to, because  _ Beca shows up for practice _ .

 

The brunette walks in on what is quite literally the most intense (and only, if she’s being completely honest) physical fight of Chloe’s life. She and Amy are wrestling with Aubrey for the pitch pipe and who knows what the hell else is occurring around her, and then Beca cautiously enters the room, uncharacteristically timid.

 

Everything stops.

 

Beca came, by some odd twist of fate that leaves Chloe positively reeling with a plethora of emotions - some positive, most negative. But Aubrey makes it clear that she doesn’t want her here, and Chloe feels like her heart is in her throat (she can hear the blood roaring in her ears) because  _ damn _ , she was so close to making the pieces fit again. 

 

The blonde seems to realize that all eyes are on her, and everybody else wants Beca to be welcomed back into the Barden Bellas, so she does something shockingly out of character: she caves. She actually lets Beca stay. This causes Chloe’s entire body to flood with such intense joy that she literally can’t stop smiling for days, all negative repercussions of Beca’s triumphant return fading away as quickly as they had surfaced. 

 

She almost manages to forget that she has (kind of) been a total trainwreck lately. Almost.

 

In other news, Aubrey somehow finds it deep within her obsessive self to relinquish control of the Bellas and allow Beca to take over. (Chloe is incredibly proud of her.  _ This  _ is the Aubrey who become her best friend). It’s exactly the fresh start that they all needed. The freshman has such amazing ideas that both of the (technical) captains are thoroughly convinced that they are absolutely going to win nationals this year. 

 

Aubrey’s surprising willingness to mend fences with the brunette is the catalyst that drives Chloe to fix things with the blonde. She initially isn’t sure that their relationship can be fully repaired after the damage that it sustained, but they manage to come to a mutual understanding: the past several months never happened. (Frankly, Aubrey has  _ no idea  _ how much Chloe wishes that could be true). 

 

Chloe even manages to cautiously re-establish a friendship with Beca, something that a few weeks ago (after two bottles of wine) she  _ never  _ thought would happen. It isn’t exactly the same as before, (their night together seems to be looming over them, more than it ever had in the past) but they are making it work, miraculously. She’s optimistic that, given time, their relationship will return to all that she has hoped it could become (and more). 

 

For now, things seem to be going really, really well. So well, in fact, that Chloe doesn’t even notice that she hasn’t had a drink in nearly two weeks. 

 

It’s a welcome change, but she has a sinking feeling that it won’t last. 

 

***

 

The night before nationals, Aubrey takes the girls out for (a relatively) classy dinner to celebrate all of their accomplishments. They have achieved a great deal, (and in the process, suffered through so much more) and Chloe thinks it feels right to acknowledge that. 

 

“Isn’t this a little premature?” Beca asks at the start of their meal. She doesn’t sound at all condescending, just genuinely curious. “Celebrating our win before we even perform?” 

 

It’s safe to say that not everyone agrees with Chloe.

 

“This has nothing to do with nationals, Beca,” Aubrey replies defensively, evidently not picking up on the lack of accusation in the brunette’s voice. “This is about everything else that has happened to us this year, and the fact that despite all of that, we are somehow  _ still  _ friends.”

 

“We’re still a  _ family _ , Aubrey,” Chloe quietly corrects. 

 

Nothing has ever felt more true. They have been through so much - both individually and as a group - and yet, regardless of their differences, each of these women are like family to her in ways that the Bellas of the past hadn’t been. The events of this year have certainly been divisive, to say the very least, but they have stuck together, and Chloe strongly believes that that is something to be thankful for. 

 

“I couldn’t agree more.” Beca smiles brightly as she says this, flashing a quick grin at Chloe that causes the redhead’s heart to flutter in her chest. 

 

(Call her cheesy, but there are few things as perfect and pure as Beca Mitchell’s smile). 

 

“Really?” Aubrey is skeptical, but she’s also halfway through her second glass of wine, (Chloe is drinking water) and alcohol tends to make her a little emotional. “Even after how horrible and bitchy I was to all of you?”

 

“Of course,” Beca says confidently. It is clear that her statement is final. “Sisters for life, right?”

 

The brunette glances around the table to ensure that the others feel the same way. Stacie, Denise, and Ashley nod affirmatively and enthusiastically, Jessica simply smiles, and Lilly doesn’t say or do anything but definitely seems to be in agreement with the rest of the girls. Then again, it is a little difficult to tell. 

 

“Damn right,” Cynthia-Rose adds, sharply nodding her head. 

 

“Yeah, Aubrey, you’re stuck with us now, whether you want to be or not,” Fat Amy replies jovially, also (more than) halfway through her own second glass of wine. 

 

Maybe it’s the alcohol or the blunt truth that things are finally coming to an end for them, but Aubrey’s eyes (and Chloe’s) shine with tears as she gazes affectionately at her friends - sorry, sisters. These women are their sisters. 

 

Chloe personally thinks that this is the most like herself she’s felt in a long time. As dinner progresses and the women share many laughs and heartfelt moments, she realizes that she never, ever wants this night to be over. She doesn’t want to face the hard reality that is life outside of school. She doesn’t want to move on - she wants to stay with the Bellas, because they make her a better person. 

 

Beca makes her a better person.

 

Well, at least that is what Chloe used to think. When she looks back on everything she’s been through this year, (the extensive drinking, the unrelenting sexcapades, the general lack of motivation and desire to do anything worthwhile, etc) and how much of that was somehow connected to Beca, she can’t help but feel that the younger girl’s involvement in her life hasn’t necessarily been a blessing in disguise. Perhaps it has been something more akin to a ticking time bomb that just keeps exploding, no matter how carefully it is handled. 

 

So much has changed since she met Beca at the activities fair, to put it lightly. Maybe, just maybe, things have changed for the worse.

 

***

 

Later that night, after the dinner has finished and the evening has officially become depressing, Chloe sits (well,  _ flops _ ) on her bed and resolves to contemplate her earlier realization. 

 

Suffice it to say that it wasn’t what she would categorize as a ‘cause for further celebration.’ 

 

Beca changed her life, for sure, but not  _ technically  _ in a good way. Truthfully, Chloe’s fairly certain that this is one of the few times she’s been completely sober since their very first introduction. She’s made so, so,  _ so _ many mistakes - some minor, some absolutely fucking gigantic - over the course of the year, and almost all of them were spurred by something regarding Beca. She is deeply in love with the younger girl, yes, but is it really worth it to compromise herself for the mere potential of a relationship? Does she honestly want to keep living her life like this - drinking everytime something even slightly inconvenient happens to her?  _ Seriously _ ?

 

Ironically, in this moment, Chloe is painfully aware of the fact that all she really wants is a drink to make these feelings go away. The thought is nauseating. 

 

The more she focuses on it, however, the more the desire grows. She wants to scream, (or throw something) because she can’t be sinking back into this dark place, not after all of the progress she has made recently. She can’t allow herself to fall because of Beca. Not again.

 

Nevertheless, she desperately needs a drink. She can’t be feeling this way right now, not with nationals in less than twenty-four hours. She has to take the edge off (at the very least a little bit) so that she can avoid becoming consumed by the negativity. Before she can talk herself out of it, Chloe is frantically digging through her horrendously cluttered fridge, hoping to find anything with a decent alcohol content. Anything at all, really. 

 

It is in  _ this  _ moment that Chloe finally realizes that she might have a legitimate problem. 

 

She feels the bile rise like fire in her throat, and hastily slams the fridge shut as though it had burned her. Head spinning and chest aching with the weight of repressed emotion, she collapses back onto her comfortable bed just in time for the tears to start rolling down her cheeks.

 

There is a knock at her door, startling her. Chloe wipes the tears away (that doesn’t do much, as they continue to fall hot and fast) and goes to see who has come to call. When she opens the door to reveal (a sincerely confused) Beca, Chloe cannot help but burst into the sort of laughter that quickly morphs into gasping sobs. 

 

God, she feels foolish. 

 

Beca doesn’t say anything, evidently realizing that something is seriously wrong, and there probably isn’t anything that she could say that would be of any real help anyway. Instead, she pulls Chloe close and the two women slowly sink to the floor. 

 

She’s not quite sure how long they stay like this, but Chloe does know that she has made up her mind. She needs to let go of Beca. 

 

For good this time. 

 

***

 

Speaking of miracles, they win nationals.

 

The set that Beca put together for them is a hit with both the audience  _ and  _ the judges, a feat Chloe honestly never expected them to achieve. Seriously, their performance absolutely kicks some aca-ass. The entire experience can be described in only one word: exhilarating. 

 

Receiving the trophy is an incredible feeling that quickly shoots to the top of Chloe’s list entitled ‘favorite college memories.’ It’s not very long. 

 

On her ‘least favorite college memories list’ (but most definitely not at the top)? The moment Beca rushes off the stage and, running on what Chloe supposes is pure adrenaline and euphoria, finally makes her choice by kissing Jesse. Like,  _ really  _ kissing Jesse. It’s a kiss filled with cinematic potential - the sort of kiss that would serve as an ending to a movie, if the filmmakers were fans of cheesy romance. 

 

It’s also a kiss that causes Chloe to want to go home and cry, (well, she’s already crying for a completely different reason, but still) because she clearly no longer has a real shot with the brunette. To be fair, she  _ did  _ make the decision last night that she doesn’t want to pursue an actual relationship with Beca anymore, but she would have preferred to do that on her own terms. She didn’t want to know that she isn’t Beca’s first choice, regardless of everything that has happened between them. She didn’t want clarification that their night together was nothing more than a drunken mistake.

 

That night had felt so real, which is probably why this is so much more painful. It had been as though all of the pieces were finally falling into place. Chloe had genuinely believed that she had found her soulmate. 

 

Maybe the darkness and the dancing had fooled her into being so incredibly naive, or maybe the alcohol had clouded her judgment enough to make her have faith in fairytales, but the fact of the matter is that nothing that happened between her and Beca meant anything. She made assumptions that turned out to be drastically incorrect, and that cost her dearly. 

 

It wasn’t real. None of it was real.

 

(‘It’ referring to their nonexistent romantic relationship, of course - the friendship that developed between the two women was very much so a reality, and it just so happens to be a reality that Beca will have to pry from Chloe’s cold, dead hands). 

 

Needless to say, despite their unexpected (yet fucking  _ amazing _ ) nationals win, things are right back to sucking, especially considering the fact that the next day, Chloe receives a letter from the dean. She has apparently failed two of her classes, so she is unable to graduate from Barden University this year. 

 

This, unfortunately, is the tipping point that drives her into the arms of her closest, most consistently reliable friend: booze.

 

Just like that, it all comes crashing down. 

 

***   
  


Chloe has kept the secret that is her huge crush on Beca (because although she recognizes that the brunette is unavailable and unhealthy for her, she can’t help but remain infatuated) for virtually the entire school year. She has hidden it from her very best friend in the whole world, Aubrey, and she finally realizes that she needs to tell the blonde when she discovers that graduation is not an option.

 

It doesn’t exactly go well. 

 

“You’re not graduating?!” Aubrey practically screams when Chloe gives her the news. 

 

The ginger just sadly shakes her head, feeling a little sick to her stomach. She doesn’t want to have to do this, but her parents have instilled in her that honesty is always the best policy, so she does her best to swallow her anxieties.

 

“But how could this happen?” Aubrey asks, her eyes wide, beginning to pace back and forth across the room while Chloe watches from her spot on the bed. “How are you not graduating?”

 

Taking a deep breath, Chloe decides to tell her the truth. “I failed Russian Lit.”

 

Well, part of the truth. 

 

“But  _ how _ ?”

 

“I-”

 

“I just don’t understand how something like this could happen. I mean, we’ve been looking forward to this for literally  _ four years _ , Chloe, and you’re going to just throw it all away because you somehow couldn’t pass one freaking class? Can you explain to me why - and how, while we’re on the subject - you failed  _ Russian Literature _ ?”

 

Aubrey sounds borderline hysterical at this point, which Chloe expected. She knows that her best friend is just as invested in her future as she is in her own, so the yelling doesn’t faze her all that much. She saw it coming.

 

“I was distracted.” It isn’t a lie, but it still isn’t the whole truth.

 

The blonde suddenly stops pacing and furrows her eyebrows. “Is this about Jacob?”

 

“ _ No _ , Bree,” Chloe exclaims exasperatedly. She rubs her eyes with the palms of her hands, trying to ignore the fact that they’re sweating. “No, God, I got over him months ago.”

 

“Then what is it?” Aubrey’s pacing again, clearly agitated, and Chloe feels a lot more than a little sick to her stomach at this point. “What could possibly have been so unbelievably distracting that it caused you to not graduate college, hm?”

 

The redhead doesn’t answer because she’s fairly certain that if she opens her mouth, she’ll throw up all over Aubrey’s pristine bedspread and spotless carpet. Either that, or she’ll burst into tears. 

 

Aubrey sees the expression on her face and sighs heavily before sitting down on the bed next to Chloe. “Okay, look. I’m sorry for yelling, but I just don’t understand what you’re saying. Can you tell me what happened? Please?”

 

Chloe takes a shaky breath and feels the first tear slide down her face. Instinctively, Aubrey rests a comforting hand on her shoulder, which the redhead knows will be withdrawn in horror the second she confesses her biggest secret. But she has to tell Aubrey at some point, and she supposes that it’s better late than never, so she closes her eyes and finally brings herself to be completely truthful.

 

“I’m in love with Beca.”

 

“You’re  _ what _ ?” Aubrey shouts, jumping up from the bed. She’s shocked.

 

As soon as Aubrey reacts in the way that she does, Chloe starts crying openly. She squeezes her eyes so tightly shut that they almost hurt, and she can feel her entire body shaking with sobs that she doesn’t quite want to let out. “Please don’t make me say it again.”

 

“But…  _ what _ ?” Aubrey’s begun to pace again. “You’re in love with… with Beca.  _ Our  _ Beca.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Beca  _ Mitchell _ ?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Aubrey is silent for a moment, so Chloe forces herself to open her eyes. She’s still crying, but her best friend doesn’t look as angry as she had a few minutes ago. The blonde is running her hands through her hair, evidently trying to figure out what to say next.

 

“How long?” Aubrey finally asks quietly.

 

“Since the moment we met,” Chloe replies through her tears, her voice sounding pathetically small and childlike. She tugs nervously at the sleeves of her sweater, doing anything to keep from making eye contact with her best friend. “On the first day of school, at the activities fair.” 

 

“Does she love you back?”

 

Chloe’s only response is a choked sob, but Aubrey understands. Of course Beca doesn’t love her back. The brunette loves Jesse, even though she had a much better option right in front of her for literally months. Beca loves Jesse, despite the passionate night she shared with Chloe. 

 

It’s ridiculous and unfair and painful all at once. 

 

“So what are you going to do now?”

 

“Redo my senior year of college, I guess,” Chloe says dryly, wiping her eyes. “I don’t really have any other choice.”

 

“That’s not what I meant,” Aubrey explains, taking a seat next to redhead. “Are you going to tell her how you feel?”   
  
Okay, so Chloe  _ definitely  _ did not anticipate this. Never in a million years would she have expected Aubrey to allude to encouraging her that being honest with Beca would be a decent idea. (To be perfectly clear - it isn’t. The potential consequences are too drastic to even consider doing such a ludicrous thing).

 

“No,” Chloe hastily replies. She finds that saying the words out loud makes it that much more real, and her confidence boosts. “I’ll just have to get over her.” 

 

She means it. She’s going to let go. After all, it can’t be  _ that  _ hard… can it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I would certainly appreciate any feedback/questions/thoughts/concerns that you might have! Have a lovely day!


	6. i might be okay (but i'm not fine at all)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, sooooo sorry that this chapter has taken me forever to post... the past few weeks have been a bit challenging for a number of different reasons. Again, I am very sorry, and I hope that you enjoy this chapter!

It’s two weeks into (hopefully her last) summer vacation, and Chloe has not spoken to Beca once. 

 

(Well, that is mostly because Aubrey held her phone hostage for the first week and a half, but it was all in Chloe’s best interests. At least, that’s the mantra that the blonde has drilled into her head after several days of relentless complaints).

 

Regardless of the methods that she employs to accomplish her goal, Chloe is still feeling relatively proud of herself. She’s actually managing to put some distance between her and Beca, and she is thoroughly convinced that the separation will prove to be the best choice in the long run. She needs to be able to move on if she hopes to even have a prayer at surviving what she’s already chosen to refer to as ‘senior year: part two.’ 

 

It does hurt her to consider the confusion that Beca must be experiencing, though. Chloe is all too familiar with the pain and frustration associated with being ignored, and she genuinely hates that she might (inadvertently, as she would never intentionally do anything to cause Beca harm) be putting the brunette through such baffling things. 

 

Then again, Beca could be positively thrilled that Chloe has cut off all contact. Maybe she found the older girl to be irritating and desperately needed a break from her. Maybe Beca thinks that this is for the best, too. (Okay, so it is definitely a bit of a stretch to assume anything of the sort, but it does provide the smallest ounce of comfort to Chloe, who has honestly been agonizing over the potential consequences of her actions for literally two weeks). 

 

The Beca situation aside, her summer has not been too bad thus far. Virginia is hot, (not Atlanta hot, but definitely  _ hot _ ) yet Chloe is finding that, unlike other summers, the weather isn’t bothering her too much. (She was born in Oregon, but the Beale family had to relocate to Fairfax when she was twelve because of her father’s job). She is far too preoccupied by the prospect of having to redo her senior year, so the heat is the least of her worries. 

 

Her parents were actually surprisingly understanding (although obviously disappointed) about her failure to graduate from college, especially when she explained to them that she had been suffering through some personal difficulties this past school year. She doesn’t go so far as to mention everything that occurred between her and the brunette, and her parents don’t ask her very many questions, a fact which she is truly grateful for. Chloe doesn’t necessarily want to discuss an extensive string of one night stands and nights spent drinking entire bottles of wine with her loving and supportive mother and father. That would suck.

 

Needless to say, that absolutely does not mean that her parents are clueless, because they certainly are not. They know that something serious is going on with their daughter, Chloe just doesn’t expect them to approach her regarding their suspicions. The Beale family has been historically horrendous at confrontation. They do their best to avoid it at all costs.

 

So, when Chloe’s older sister pays a visit on day fifteen of her summer vacation, positively hell-bent on having a serious discussion, she’s a little taken aback. 

 

Chloe is sitting on the patio with a romance novel (that is significantly more… well,  _ hot  _ than it is chalked full of overused cliches) and a glass of wine when her sister unexpectedly arrives. She doesn’t hear the back door open at first, mostly because she is deeply invested in her book, but she immediately recognizes the voice that rings cheerfully across the yard. 

 

“Chloe!”

 

Upon looking up from her book, the redhead notices the young woman rapidly crossing the patio to great her. “Oh my God, Cassie!”

 

She jumps out of her chair, romance novel (and wine) completely forgotten, and rushes into the welcoming arms of her sister. The older woman hugs her tightly and refrains from saying anything for a few minutes, apparently relishing in the embrace. 

 

At a whopping twenty-seven years old, Cassidy is the oldest daughter of Jim and Karen Beale, and she is  _ easily  _ their favorite. (To be fair, she  _ is  _ the only one that has already given them grandchildren - not that they are biased because of that, of course). Unlike Chloe or the Beale’s second oldest child, Claire, Cassie is tall, blonde, and  _ exceptionally  _ motivated. She went to Harvard to become a defense attorney, which is coincidentally where she happened to meet her husband, Michael Wilson. The Wilsons have twin two-year old daughters - Isabella and Sophia - and currently reside in Boston, so they don’t get to visit family terribly often. 

 

The most important thing about Cassie, by far, is that Chloe absolutely adores her. 

 

Her two older sisters were her best friends for the longest time. They spent virtually every second of every day together - Cassie and Claire were the ones who sparked her love of music in the first place. 

 

Unfortunately, the three of them began to grow apart once they started secondary school, but Chloe still greatly admires her sisters, especially Cassie. The blonde was basically her role model throughout high school  _ and  _ the first three years of college, so she is beyond thrilled that the oldest Beale has come to visit. 

 

Needless to say, after everything she has been through recently, she missed her big sister.

 

“I didn’t realize you were coming!” Chloe exclaims when they pull away from the hug. “Did you bring Michael and the girls?”

 

“I wanted it to be a surprise!” Cassie is grinning from ear to ear. “Unfortunately, no. They couldn’t make it this time, but Mom practically demanded that I come back with them next month. She is  _ desperate  _ for some grandma time with Bella and Sophie.”

 

The redhead laughs heartily. “Yeah, that certainly sounds like Mom… if you didn’t come with your family, what brings you this far south, Cass?” 

 

Cassie’s facial expression abruptly becomes incredibly somber, (it’s like someone flicked a switch and triggered the change instantaneously) and Chloe’s heart drops to her feet. She knows her sister very,  _ very  _ well, and it is evident that whatever the reason for her unannounced visit, it isn’t good. 

 

“Mom and Dad actually asked me to come down,” Cassie says slowly, pausing to gauge Chloe’s reaction. “They’re… well, they’re worried about you, Chloe. To be completely honest so am I.”

 

Chloe swallows hard, a simple task that she is suddenly finding difficult. “Oh?”

 

She feels nauseous. What began as a happy family reunion is quickly spiraling into what Chloe is sure will be a difficult conversation. She’s fairly certain that she knows where this is going - her parents weren’t really all that understanding about the fact that she needs to repeat her senior year of college, but they also weren’t intent on talking to her about it themselves. No, that was a job reserved for their other children. 

 

“I… you know what, maybe we should sit down to discuss this. I’ll go grab us some iced teas.”

 

Cassie has spun on her heels and is halfway to the door when Chloe calls out to stop her, thoroughly annoyed that the older woman is already beating around the bush. “Okay, hold on a second, would you? I don’t need an iced tea, and I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t speak to me like a child. I am  _ not  _ a child, Cassie.”

 

Okay, so maybe her sister was not speaking to her like a child. Chloe just feels a little bit attacked, that’s all. No biggie. 

 

She’s not totally sure why she’s getting angry so quickly. They haven’t even gotten to the crux of the issue yet, which will more than likely prove to be a part of the conversation that is significantly worse than this. 

 

Taking a deep breath in order to quell her own emotions, Cassie turns and heads back over to her sister. “You’re right. I just… I’m not quite sure how to approach this.”

 

“Why don’t you try just coming out and saying it?” Chloe still doesn’t know why she’s being so abrasive, but she definitely feels like she has a right to be.

 

“Okay, well… “ There is another long pause as the blonde attempts to gather her thoughts and translate them into adequate words. “Chloe, why did you fail college?”   
  
If this is going to be a repeat of the conversation that she had with Aubrey, then Chloe is not in the least bit interested in listening to whatever her sister has to say. She is excited to see Cassie, for sure, but she does  _ not  _ want to be made to feel badly for something that she already dwells on ninety-five percent of the time.

 

“I didn’t pass Russian Lit,” she replies dryly. 

 

“Yeah, I know,” Cassie says, obviously gearing up to push for more. “Why, though?”

 

“My heart wasn’t really in it.” That’s true. Her heart was, in every respect, invested in something (someone, if she wants to get technical) else. 

 

“Then why didn’t you switch to another class?”   
  


“I realized too late.”   
  
“Okay, then did you at the very least  _ try  _ to pass?” It sounds a lot like a plea (as though Cassie wants to believe that her sister didn’t throw away an entire year of her life without making a  _ minor  _ effort to do well academically) to the redhead, and that honestly just makes her feel even worse.    
  
Chloe doesn’t answer.

 

“Mom said last summer was rough for you.” Cassie’s voice is calm and gentle as she expertly veers the conversation in a different direction, but that doesn’t lessen the effect that her words have on the younger woman.

 

“What exactly did she tell you about last summer?” At this point, Chloe can literally feel her blood pressure rising.

 

“I’d actually like to hear that from you. What do  _ you  _ think she told me, Chloe?”

 

For a split second, Chloe wonders if she should just confess everything to Cassie. Maybe talking to someone other than Aubrey, for once, will help her to process the last year of her life, or maybe it will do nothing more than make her feel like a bigger screw-up than she already knows that she is. Regardless, coming clean and being completely honest would definitely be nice, but Chloe isn’t sure that she can do it. 

 

As soon as the words leave her mouth, there will be no going back.

 

“I had a rough breakup and made some questionable decisions. That’s all.” Once again, Chloe proves to be adept at omitting pieces of the truth, and only admitting what she wants to.

 

“Oh, is that all?” Cassie asks sarcastically, crossing her arms over her chest. “You made some ‘ _ questionable decisions _ ?’ You spent last summer having a shit ton of sex and drinking so much that you could barely remember the night’s events once the sun came up. Mom and Dad watched hookup after hookup traipse through their own damn living room  _ every single night _ , only to watch helplessly while you spent your days holed up in your room with a bottle of literally any kind of alcohol you could get your hands on and a pile of junk food! You did all of  _ that  _ because of a  _ breakup _ ?”

 

The older girl pauses to take a breath, her chest heaving. Chloe is  _ extremely  _ taken aback, and struggles to find any words for a few moments. That rant is so unlike Cassie - and the Beale family in general, frankly, given that they are not necessarily the biggest proponents of confrontation - that a part of Chloe almost can’t believe that they are actually having this conversation. A much larger part of Chloe possesses enough self-respect to recognize that her sister really shouldn’t be talking to her in this way. 

 

“Wow,” Chloe whispers, chuckling darkly. “I…  _ wow _ , Cassie.”

 

“Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have said it quite like that-” Cassie starts to say, clearly realizing that she has let her emotions get the better of her and has spoken out of turn. It seems like she’s headed in the direction of an apology when Chloe cuts her off. 

 

“No, you obviously said  _ exactly  _ what you were feeling.” Chloe’s tone is scandalizing, but she doesn’t care. She’s far surpassed annoyed, and is edging into enraged territory. “I won’t deny anything that you said, but God, Cassie, I was hurting. I was lost. I was… I don’t know,  _ confused _ . Hell, I’m still confused! I didn’t graduate college, and I have no idea why. I’m not even sure if I remember the majority of my senior year… to be completely honest, I spent most of my time drinking, or with Beca, or…”

 

The second she mentions that particular name, Chloe freezes. In this moment, she knows that she has (accidentally) opened a can of worms that she will never be able to close, no matter how hard she tries. There will be no turning back from here.

 

“Who’s Beca?” questions Cassie, politely choosing to ignore (or sweep under the rug) the rest of Chloe’s rant. 

 

The redhead doesn’t really know how to answer that question. Her crush? Her fellow Barden Bella? Her one night stand? The love of her life? 

 

“My best friend.” 

 

“I thought Aubrey was your best friend?” Cassie is frowning, which makes sense. As far as she is concerned, Aubrey and Chloe have been virtually inseparable for four years.

 

“Beca is my best friend in a… different sort of way,” explains Chloe, rubbing her temples as she does so. The longer this conversation persists, the more she can feel a headache (migraine, since her life kind of sucks) coming on. 

 

Much to her surprise, Cassie actually has the audacity to burst out laughing. It’s humorless.

 

“What’s so funny?” Chloe demands, irritated that her sister is able to find any aspect of this situation even the slightest bit amusing.

 

“Oh my God, it all makes sense now,” exclaims Cassie. She throws her hands up in the air and begins to pace back and forth across the patio. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you.”

 

It’s a statement, not a question, because the blonde obviously already knows the truth. For the second time in ten minutes, Chloe chooses not to answer, instead opting to stare at the ground, which is of course answer enough for Cassie. 

 

“Why didn’t you want to tell me, Chloe?” Cassie’s voice is, once again, much softer. 

 

Chloe looks up to meet her sister’s eyes, and is momentarily shocked to see that the older woman seems genuinely hurt that the redhead did not confide in her. She can feel her heart break a little bit, (but  _ only  _ a little bit) and she finally realizes that all Cassie wants for her is the best. The blonde isn’t necessarily trying to be intrusive, she just wants to make sure that Chloe is okay.

 

“I didn’t want you to think any differently of me.” Chloe is ashamed to say that now she does sound like a small child - timid and desperate for approval. Her emotions start to build up again and she hastily wipes the beginnings of tears from her eyes.

 

“For being into girls?” Cassie frowns. “Trust me, that isn’t a surprise for any of us.”

 

Despite herself, Chloe forces out a short laugh. She isn’t amused. “No, Cass, I knew you would support that… I didn’t want you to think any differently of me because of the other choices I have made recently.”   
  
“The drinking.” Again, it’s a statement. Cassie doesn’t need any clarification. She knows.

 

“Yeah,” Chloe whispers, her eyes welling with tears that she can’t quite stop. 

 

Cassie’s features soften, and she carefully takes Chloe’s hands into her own. “Oh, honey, why are you crying?” 

 

Because she disappointed yet another person whose opinion she holds dear. Because she can barely remember her senior year of college. Because she allowed her own pride and selfishness to ruin her relationships with the two closest friends she’s ever had. Because she is frustrated, and sad, and lonely, and  _ so fucking tired feeling this way _ . She’s exhausted.

 

“I don’t know.” She pulls her hands away from her sister and buries her face into them. 

 

“Chloe…”

 

“I said that I don’t know!” Chloe is still crying, but behind the tears, her eyes are blazing with unbridled fury. She has had enough. 

 

The older woman raises a questioning eyebrow at the redhead, clearly taken aback by her response. “Why did you drink in the first place?”

 

“I…  _ God _ , Cassie, I don’t know!” exclaims Chloe, and it is (more or less) the truth. 

 

She doesn’t know exactly why she started drinking more often than is considered socially acceptable at her age, but she’s pretty damn sure that it started almost immediately after her breakup with Jacob. Her emotions confused her back then, (they certainly confuse her now) and she made the decision to bury them in alcohol instead of confronting them head on, like the woman she was raised to be. 

 

Jacob took pieces of her that she will never get back, but Beca… after Beca, and all that happened between them, nothing seemed to fit together at  _ all _ . It was as if someone took a sledgehammer and repeatedly struck her heart until it was reduced to something completely unrecognizable. She couldn’t really feel anything unless she was drinking, and when she was drinking, the only things she seemed to be capable of feeling were regret and depression. 

 

She drank because she was - because she  _ is  _ \- broken, and she didn’t (doesn’t) know how to put herself back together. 

 

“Really?” Cassie frowns, evidently skeptical. “You have absolutely no idea why you decided to start drinking?”

 

“I wanted to feel  _ something _ ,” Chloe shouts, growing tired of evading the reality of the issue and skirting around her confession. She is sobbing now.

 

“Did you?”

 

“No.” It’s a simple admission, and it is the truth. No matter how much she drank, she couldn’t quite seem to feel anything worthwhile. She starts to hyperventilate, her sobs becoming increasingly anguished as she does so. “No, God,  _ no _ . Cassie, I didn’t… I didn’t feel  _ anything _ , I-”

 

It is in this moment, as Cassie stares at her with an expression of the utmost pity, and hot tears stream down the redhead’s face, that Chloe finally comes to terms with a simple fact: she needs help. Serious help.

 

Chloe has spent the better part of two years telling herself that she is okay, but the fact of the matter is that she is not fine at all. Not even a little bit.

 

***

 

The rest of the summer passes by at a snail’s pace, and when the first day of her second year as a college senior finally rolls around, Chloe is fully convinced that her ‘vacation’ (because she certainly would not go so far as to refer to the past three months as such) was never going to end. 

 

After her talk with Cassie, she sat down with her parents to discuss her issues - self-diagnosed alcoholism and depression that turned out to be, shockingly, alcoholism and depression - and what their various options were regarding treatment. It wasn’t necessarily what Chloe would call a  _ fun  _ conversation, but her parents were relieved that she was actually admitting to these problems, so it wasn’t nearly as painful as she had expected. They were understanding and kind and made it extremely clear that they only ever want the best for their daughter, which is all that Chloe really needed to hear them say. 

 

They eventually settle on entering her into a program, and she spends the entire month of July in a rehabilitation center fifty miles south of Fairfax. It is, to say the very least, an incredibly difficult experience. She never expected detoxing to be easy, per say, but she certainly never expected it to be quite so hard; however, despite the challenges of the program, Chloe graduates after thirty-one days, completely clean and feeling measurably better than she has in years. 

 

She doesn’t tell any of her friends that she goes to rehab, especially not Aubrey. There is absolutely no doubt in her mind that they would fully support her, but she realizes that she would most likely benefit from keeping them uninvolved. Needless to say, she does. 

 

It feels strangely freeing to be able to get back on her own feet without Aubrey’s (slightly) controlling tendencies, and the (almost too) overwhelming love and support from the rest of the Bellas. Chloe pulls through this with nothing more than the help of her family and her own personal abilities, and that is an accomplishment that will influence her decisions for the remainder of her life. 

 

All is (more or less, or at the very least on the way to being) well on the mental health front, but there is one  _ tiny  _ problem that Chloe still has to figure out how to face, and that is her situation with Beca. Although she had sworn up and down and sideways that she would do everything in her power to get over the younger woman, now that she is in a much better place, she is genuinely starting to wonder if that was the right thing to do. 

 

Beca is (was?) her best friend, not to mention the love of her life, and Chloe had given that up without hesitation in order to focus on her own health. She hadn’t been able to handle everything that had happened between her and the brunette, but her health has significantly improved, and she is slowly coming to the realization that she has made a huge fucking mistake. She wants Beca in her life. 

 

Unfortunately, she has absolutely no idea how to possibly even begin broaching the subject, because she has a hunch that the brunette would most likely rather not see her again.

 

She is  _ still  _ agonizing over a potential solution to this predicament when, on the first day of senior year, (part two!) Chloe almost  _ immediately  _ (and literally) runs into that one person she has been dreading seeing: Beca. The younger woman is carrying boxes from her car and up to the door of her building when the redhead, who is definitely not paying any attention to her surroundings and is giving an anxious Aubrey a play-by-play of the morning, rounds the corner. The two women instantly collide, causing the box to fall to the ground, spilling personal belongings all over the sidewalk. 

 

“Dude!” Beca exclaims, clearly irritated, as she rubs her aching forehead. “Watch where you’re go-... oh. It’s you.”

 

Chloe notes the way that Beca’s face drops the second that the brunette recognizes her, and she feels sick to her stomach. Her time in rehab has been her only focus for the majority of the summer, so the issues regarding the freshman - sorry, sophomore - have honestly taken up residence in the back of her mind, but recently everything has been rushing forward. Actually coming face-to-face with Beca only exacerbates these feelings. 

 

“Hey,” Chloe sheepishly replies. She doesn’t know quite what else to say. “I… um… I’m sorry.”

 

“For running into me or for ignoring me all summer?” Beca’s voice is nothing short of scathing, and Chloe already kind of feels like crying.

 

“Both. Definitely both.” It’s the truth, of course.

 

“Gotcha,” the brunette scoffs, crouching down to start shoving her personal belongings back into the box from which they spilled.

 

“Beca…” Chloe trails off, sensing the animosity radiating from the younger woman in literal waves. 

 

“No, don’t ‘Beca’ me. You don’t get to treat me like I’m being irrational. Chloe, you cut me off for  _ months  _ on end without even so much as a heads up. That was so messed up! I don’t want to talk to you, okay? Can you understand that?”

 

The brunette finishes refilling her box and stands up, ready to continue moving into her dorm, but Chloe most certainly is not ready for this conversation to be over.

 

“Beca, hold on a second,” Chloe starts to say as the sophomore moves away from her. “Please, please just listen to me.”

 

Although she audibly sighs and absolutely appears as though the act of doing so is physically painful, Beca stays. She puts the box down, (voluntarily this time) crosses her arms over her chest, and “Fine.  _ What _ ?”

 

“I went to rehab.” Chloe isn’t quite sure what makes her lead with that, but it definitely catches Beca’s attention, so she assumes that the admission is worth it.

 

Her eyes ablaze with an odd mixture of anger and intrigue, Beca raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

 

“Over the summer, I went to rehab. For an alcohol problem.”

 

The brunette doesn’t answer for a solid fifteen seconds, but to Chloe, it feels a whole lot more like fifteen years. “I see.” 

 

“Yeah.” 

 

Chloe doesn’t know what to say next, because she doesn’t know how to explain to Beca why she cut her off in the first place. She doesn’t  _ want  _ to explain to Beca why she cut her off in the first place. Spending all of her time pining after a person with whom she has no chance of a real relationship has proven to be a bit of a challenge, so removing all contact had originally seemed like the best option. 

 

Now… well, now Chloe isn’t quite so sure. 

 

“Is that it?” Beca asks. 

 

Desperate to keep the conversation going, Chloe hastily racks her brain for  _ anything  _ she could say. Anything at all. “Um… how was your summer?” 

 

“It was fine,” replies Beca, shrugging, her voice continuing to reek of detachment and utter indifference. “I broke up with Jesse.”

 

It is hard for Chloe to stop herself from visibly doing a double-take, but she does. “I… I see. Are you okay?”

 

For the first time, Chloe notices that Beca’s face softens at these words. “Yeah, I really am. It was never going to work out, anyway. I think he and I are better as just friends.”

 

Chloe has to literally bite her lip to refrain from sounding even the least bit excited because of this news. “I understand that. Well, um… it was nice to see you, Beca.”

 

“It was nice to see you too, Chlo,” Beca says with a (semi-genuine) smile.

 

The younger woman walks away and Chloe realizes that this is her cue to leave. She  _ also  _ realizes that maybe,   _ just maybe  _ she has a chance to repair her friendship with Beca and perhaps even watch it evolve into something more. The prospect is so exciting that she actually skips back to her apartment. Her second senior year is going to be far better than her first, if she plays her cards right. 

 

That is a fact of which she is unbelievably certain. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I would love to hear what you thought! Have an excellent day, because believe me, you all deserve one!


	7. come here dressed in black now (scratches down your back now)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! I realize that it's been like an entire fucking year since I bothered to update this story, but life kind of got in the way and I lost my passion for writing. I hope you guys can understand that, if anyone is still reading this. I sincerely apologize for the huge delay. I'll try my best not to let it happen again. 
> 
> Anyway, enjoy the update!

Three weeks into what will hopefully be her  _ final  _ year at Barden University, and Chloe hasn’t made very much headway on her goal to right her past wrongs - or, in other words, get a certain college  _ sophomore  _ to forgive her.

 

But honestly, it’s not like she isn’t trying. Things are weird at first. Like, so ridiculously weird that she is pretty sure her embarrassment somehow develops secondhand embarrassment. 

 

It’s hard to talk to Beca, especially after the disaster that was last year. She never actively seeks the brunette out - no, they spend almost two weeks running into one another between classes or in the dining hall - but those accidental rendezvous all over campus are so painfully awkward that if she had the option, (and she does) Chloe might completely ignore her vow to repair this broken friendship and write Beca out of her life for good.

 

Again. 

 

(How many times has she used that as an excuse to run from discomfort? Three? Eight? She is starting to lose track).

 

Whenever these urges make an unscheduled and deeply irritating appearance, Chloe swallows them (quite like she used to wash her issues down with alcohol - funny what gets her buzzed these days) and faces the rest of her day with a renewed desire to be  _ better _ .

 

But no matter how often she cycles through her confused feelings, (which, frankly, is at least twice a week) she still cannot adequately address her conflict with Beca. 

 

She has a sneaking suspicion as to why making amends is so difficult. There is a veil that exists between them; that seems to be the primary problem. It is a veil that Chloe inadvertently created after months of ignoring her apparent “best friend,” yet it is also a veil woven from everything they never said to one another; a veil born from one-night stands and an  _ almost  _ more than friendship that they never bothered to address. The tension (sexual or otherwise) is always so palpable that either girl could easily slice through it with a butter knife. Or perhaps a particularly sharp pencil.

 

Depends on the day.

 

Besides, Chloe no longer has Aubrey to fall back on. This is her first year at Barden without the blonde drill sergeant, and she quickly realizes just how much she relied on Aubrey’s harsh words to keep her tied to reality. She misses the random pep-talks and bursts of ironic encouragement so strongly that on a few occasions, her fingers almost dial the blonde’s familiar number, but she always stops herself. This is a situation that Chloe needs to solve on her own.

 

It is her fault, after all.

 

The worst part is, she misses  _ Beca _ . She misses the friendship that they used to have, before the regionals fiasco and Chloe’s rapid descent into self-destruction. She misses the way things used to be, and if she had the capability to go back in time and change the way it all played out, then she would. In a heartbeat, she would. But she can’t.

 

So Chloe settles for distance and uncomfortable interactions, silently hoping that the other shoe will finally drop.

 

The first three weeks of the semester are difficult, for sure, but Chloe continues to hold out hope that once Bellas season finally begins, things with Beca will be easier. Aubrey did leave explicit instructions that the two of them were to be carrying on the Barden Bella legacy in her absence, so perhaps working together on music and singing (one of their shared favorite things) will be the olive branch she desperately requires in order to begin repairing their relationship. 

 

That decision to leave them in charge had seemed ridiculous at first - what, with the two girls fighting and Chloe’s rehab experience; however, Aubrey has always had the group’s best interests at heart, and if she felt that Chloe and Beca would be the dream team that would once again lead their friends to victory… well, who could possibly argue with that?

 

***

 

“Wait, so you and I are still the captains? Seriously? What the hell was Aubrey  _ thinking _ ?”

 

As it turns out, Beca can  _ absolutely  _ argue with that.

 

Chloe isn’t sure why she expected anything less.

 

They are standing in the doorway of Beca and Fat Amy’s dorm room, discussing the auditions that are to be held in three days. Since the brooding brunette had refrained from making any sort of attempt to contact her, (save for the aforementioned awkward academic quad run-ins) Chloe has taken matters into her own hands and tracked her down.

 

(Really, it wasn’t all that hard. Amy is fiercely loyal to Beca but also cognizant of the brunette’s needs, and she had decided that Beca and Chloe needed to make up or  _ so help her God _ ).

 

“I’m pretty sure she was thinking we would be a kickass team and make the Bellas even better than they were last year, but I’m not surprised you disagree.” Chloe  _ is  _ surprised at how level her tone sounds, because internally, she is screaming.

 

She cannot believe that they are actually having this conversation. Like, she can’t believe that they are actually  _ talking _ , and not just briefly about class schedules or the dining hall’s shitty attempts at passing off soft-shell tortillas as pizza crusts. 

 

“Excuse me?” Beca looks scandalized. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

 

“Well, it just doesn’t surprise me that you don’t want to work together. You know, since you’re not really making any effort to be my friend.”

 

Chloe has recently learned how to get straight to the point. Beating around the bush until the whole situation goes up in the flames of miscommunication doesn’t exactly fall on her agenda for part two of her senior year. She figured it would be best if she let the brunette know exactly how she is feeling, especially since she has been so damn awful at that in the past. 

 

Beca’s eyebrows shoot so high that they hit her hairline. “Are you  _ kidding me _ ? Are you seriously going to stand there and claim that  _ I  _ haven’t been a good friend? Are you really saying that  _ I’m  _ the problem?”

 

The younger girl is yelling now, and Chloe suddenly thinks that maybe she’s pushed her luck a little too far. 

 

“Well?” The brunette’s arms are now crossed over her chest as she impatiently stares down the taller redhead.

 

“I’m not claiming to be innocent here, Becs,” Chloe says, putting up her hands in a placating gesture. “I realize that I’ve made mistakes, but you’re the one who hasn’t been answering my text messages.  _ You’re  _ the one who seems to be avoiding  _ me _ , so forgive me for taking issue with that.”

 

“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I just don’t want to talk to you?”

 

She is well aware that she is being just a touch dramatic, (what else is new) but coming from Beca, those words register like a slap to Chloe’s face. Her eyes widen and she mentally counts to five, desperately trying to avoid causing even more of a scene in the middle of the hallway. The oh-so-familiar feeling of guilt resurfaces in her stomach for the first time in months. She pushes it away.

 

Once she sees the look on Beca’s face, Chloe is reminded just how unbelievably fucked up their relationship is, and she momentarily wonders if it’s even worth it to continue fighting. She pushes that away, too. 

 

“I’m sorry for what happened this summer,” Chloe forces the words out with great difficulty. Her tongue feels like lead. “And if you hate me… gosh, then I suppose I can understand that. It’s just that I thought… look, I thought that this year things would be different. That we could start over, be friends again. The right way this time.”

 

Beca does not speak for a very long time (more or less two minutes but for all Chloe knew, her entire life had passed by the time the brunette finally opens her mouth to respond).

 

“What would you consider the right way?” Beca’s voice is incredibly quiet. 

 

It is Chloe’s turn to pause. She maintains eye contact with the younger woman, and that exchange alone is worth a thousand words. They both know what the other is thinking. The downfall of their friendship can be attributed primarily to their decision to cross lines that they never discussed after the fact. Last year’s singular sexcapade, while oh-so-delightful at the time, has  _ finally  _ caught up to them - and not in a good way.

 

“We should just be friends.” Chloe’s tongue still feels heavy in her mouth, which is as dry as a desert. “Nothing more.”

 

Chloe wonders if Amy can hear their conversation, or if she’s even home at all. She hopes that the answer to both questions is a no. 

 

Beca takes a deep breath. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

 

The Chloe Beale from her first senior year would have contemplated her answer for hours, probably with a bottle of wine. Several bottles, actually, but the fact of the matter is that the current Chloe Beale is somehow able to know exactly what she wants without the aid of alcohol. 

 

Apparently miracles do happen.

 

“Yes,” Chloe says, and she knows that this is what she wants. 

 

She is also self-aware enough to know that that last statement is a big fat lie. 

 

They have yet to break eye contact, and Chloe is surprised by the cloud of emotion that floods Beca’s eyes for the briefest of moments. “Okay.”

 

“Okay?”

 

“Yeah, if you just want to be friends then… yeah, I suppose that’s okay with me,” Beca replies, the hint of a smile on her lips.

 

Chloe releases the breath that she didn’t even realize she’d been holding.  _ Beca is willing to be her friend _ . The thought reverberates around her mind for a few seconds until it picks up so much momentum that she wants to shout it from the rooftops. She suddenly feels a lot like she did around this time last year, when she first heard Beca sing in the shower. She feels like maybe things will be okay.

 

“I - thank you, Beca,” Chloe says, trying to keep the excitement from seeping into her voice. “So I guess if we’re friends again, then maybe we should start preparing for Bellas auditions?”

 

Beca hesitates, and for a horrible moment Chloe thinks the brunette is going to change her mind, that maybe things are moving too quickly for her liking; however, she breaks into a  _ real  _ smile and gestures for the redhead to come inside. “You are absolutely right. Let’s get started…  _ friend _ .”

 

Something about the way she says the word leaves Chloe’s mind reeling, and she is just in the middle of attempting to figure it out when Beca’s arm blocks her passage into the room.

 

“Oh, and Chloe? If you  _ ever  _ pull what you did last year again, we’ll be done for good. No more second chances.”

 

The icy tone is reminiscent of one that Chloe has heard from Beca many times in the past, not the newly lighthearted Beca she witnessed a few minutes ago. The message is clear: there will be no room for messing up this time. Chloe cannot help but wonder if she hurt Beca more deeply than the younger woman has let on. 

 

“I understand,” Chloe nods. She chuckles nervously. “You don’t have to worry about that. I promise.”

 

It is a promise that she means. She can no longer have the girl whom she once assumed (and hoped) would be her greatest love, but she supposes that it isn’t the worst thing in the world, because at least Beca isn’t out of her life forever. She doesn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that, regardless of how badly a small part of her is still pining. 

 

If she is to have even the slightest relationship with Beca Mitchell, then they must remain anything except for lovers - especially if they are to work side by side as the new co-captains of the Barden Bellas. Especially since she promised.

 

But for Chloe, promises have always been notoriously difficult to keep.

 

***

 

Auditions go relatively smoothly. They pick up a few new members, but the returning Bellas are so talented that it honestly wouldn’t have even mattered if they hadn’t managed to round out their team with a small gaggle of fresh faces.

 

Of course, the icing on the cake is the co-captainship of Beca Mitchell and Chloe Beale. The two girls work so well together that their friends joke about them being a “match made in music heaven” (although they have no idea how uncomfortable those comments are, save for Amy, who  _ absolutely  _ heard Beca and Chloe’s entire exchange earlier in the week). 

 

The two women still haven’t officially addressed last year’s sexual encounter, but at this point in their newly repaired friendship, it doesn’t appear as though they  _ need  _ to talk about it. (Frankly, Chloe is worried about what would happen if they did). Their exchanges are perfectly normal, they spend time together outside of group settings, and their sexual tension, which mere weeks before had so obviously filled the atmosphere whenever they interacted, has (more or less) dissipated. 

 

This time around, Chloe and Beca are doing their friendship the right way. Or, at the very least, they are doing it the easier way. 

 

Things are going well,  _ for once _ , which is so pleasantly abnormal that it can only be described as refreshing. Chloe is happy. Her grades are decent. She gets a realistic amount of sleep each night, and she has thus far managed to avoid finding any sort of fun at the bottom of a bottle or in someone else’s pants. She has the Bellas and Beca and it feels as though a weight has been removed from her shoulders. Everything is great! She feels free. Freer than she’s felt in years.

 

This nagging little voice in the deepest, darkest corners of her mind regularly tries to convince her that at some point, all of this will go to shit, and her personal triumphs will have been for nothing. 

 

She  _ hates  _ that voice.

 

It reminds her of everything she has ever done wrong, of every time she was genuinely happy, only for her to royally screw up her entire life in one fluid motion. The thought of something like that happening again, after she has worked so hard and so long to be better, is equal parts annoying and terrifying. Chloe is terrified that her life is going to fall apart like a jenga tower when the wrong piece is bumped out of place, and she is annoyed that she even has that fear in the first place. 

 

More than anything else, Chloe is determined to keep that voice from being right. She doesn’t want to derail her second senior year. Everything that went wrong the first time around was one-hundred percent her fault, and she can’t afford to make those same mistakes more than once. 

 

She can’t afford to make the same mistakes with Beca more than once, which is why she is so glad that they have explicitly emphasized the platonic nature of their relationship.

 

Shockingly, because it’s Chloe and Beca and the two women are drawn to one another like moths to a flame, that doesn’t last very long. 

 

***

 

“We need to talk,” Beca casually says one night, taking another bite of her lo mein.

 

They are eating Chinese food in Chloe’s room while simultaneously discussing the arrangement for their first performance of the season. 

 

At the admission that they “need to talk,” Chloe is so taken aback that she stops chewing and almost forgets to swallow her chicken. Her nerves immediately go into hyperdrive. What could they possibly have to talk about that doesn’t have anything to do with the Bellas or school or cheesy television shows or - oh no. There is one thing that they could probably stand to discuss, and if the words actually come out of Beca’s mouth, then Chloe is fairly certain that she is going to scream.

 

“About what?” Chloe asks. She tries (and fails, of course) to keep her voice level.

 

“Us.” Beca replies simply, placing her container of food on Chloe’s desk. She leans back in her chair and quietly studies the older girl’s expression, waiting for a response.

 

Chloe’s heart is pounding. Apparently Beca has yet to learn that beating around the bush is never appreciated, and she wishes that the brunette would have just cut to the chase so they don’t have to engage in what will surely be uncomfortable conversational foreplay. (That is, foreplay until they reach the point. Not the kind of foreplay that would inevitably result in the crossing of every single boundary they put into place).

 

“What about us?” Chloe continues to try (and miserably fail) to be nonchalant, despite the fact that she thinks she can feel her heart in her throat.

 

“Do you remember when we had sex last year?”

 

Okay, so it takes a considerable amount of willpower for Chloe to not choke on her food.  _ Of course  _ she remembers when they had sex last year. It was the one thing she thought about (obsessed over) almost exclusively for weeks afterward. It was arguably one of the many things that influenced her downward spiral; how could she possibly forget? 

 

Over a minute passes before Chloe is able to regain enough composure to respond. “I… yeah, I remember. I, um… what about it?”

 

She knows that she sounds flustered and chagrined but really, why wouldn’t she? Her current relationship with Beca is completely platonic, and she can’t understand why the brunette would bring their past up  _ now _ .

 

“Do you regret that?” Beca whispers, leaning forward in her chair. She is staring intently at Chloe, who is doing everything to remain focused on a specific patch of carpet.

 

Chloe doesn’t know what to say. Does she regret their brief dalliance as more than friends? Her gut reaction is no, of course not, but that irritating voice is back, reminding her of all the pain unrequited love and pining caused her. She also remembers the guilt she felt immediately after the situation, like she had taken advantage of the younger, more impressionable girl. She remembers her rapid descent into renewed depression after the fact, because the highest of highs always seems to curse her with the lowest of lows. 

 

But does she regret any of it?

 

The more she thinks about it, the more she realizes that the overwhelming answer is  _ no _ . Chloe was (is, if she is being transparent) hopelessly, irretrievably in love with Beca Mitchell, despite every hit that their relationship has taken. That one night was one of the greatest experiences of Chloe’s life; it was gratifying and exhilarating and everything she had ever wanted. It was literally the only hookup in her incredibly lengthy series of ill-advised hookups that actually mattered.

 

Chloe must have been taking too long to respond, because Beca speaks up again. “I just… well, you made it pretty clear to me that you just wanted to be friends, so I guess I sort of assumed that you regretted it.” 

 

The younger woman sounds sheepish, which confuses Chloe. Is Beca implying that she doesn’t regret their encounter? 

 

Chloe finally raises her eyes to meet Beca’s gaze, and is surprised to find that the younger woman’s eyes are filled with longing and a strange kind of sadness. Her breath hitches in her throat, because she knows what she wants to do, but that voice in the back of her mind is shouting that if she relies on her heart and not her head, then it’s all going to come crashing down around her. Again. 

 

It is in this exact moment that Chloe both realizes and accepts that she is still in love with Beca.

 

“Beca… “ Chloe begins to say, anxiously running a hand through her hair.

 

She can’t breathe. Her brain is a torrent of emotion threatening to break through, and the walls she has so carefully constructed since she bothered to start taking care of herself are cracking under the strain. Her feelings for Beca, which she tried so goddamn hard to bury under a mountain of lies about wanting to limit their relationship to just friends, are resurfacing; she is reminded of just how weak the brunette makes her.

 

All it took was a simple look into Beca’s eyes. The unintentional power that the younger woman has over Chloe (the power of attraction and sexual tension that hasn’t been resolved for almost a year) is enough to break her walls open completely.

 

“I never wanted to be more than friends,” Chloe hears herself saying, because suddenly she is having an out of body experience, and she can’t remember why she ever blamed Beca for anything in the first place.

 

Acting on sheer impulse, Chloe closes the space between them and captures Beca’s lips in a kiss; a kiss fueled by every emotion she has kept hidden for so long. 

 

In the back of her mind, the voice is laughing. 

 

***

 

The second time it happens, it’s less accidental. 

 

They have just secured a win at regionals, and are out celebrating with the rest of the Bellas (sans alcohol, of course - Beca is incredibly supportive of Chloe’s aversion to beverages that inhibit her judgment and overall sense of self). It is a euphoric and wild night; most anything is on the table because they all agree that they deserve to take a break and let their hair down a little.

 

Stacie makes out with the bartender  _ and  _ two of the freshmen Bellas. (Just because Chloe and her co-captain aren’t drinking doesn’t mean the others can’t have a great time). Cynthia Rose and Lilly engage in a rather intense game of table tennis against two total strangers. Fat Amy disappeared over an hour ago, and it is anybody’s guess as to where she went.

 

As for Chloe and Beca, they watch their friends from the sidelines, sipping water and cracking jokes about both their performance and Cynthia Rose’s embarrassingly poor table tennis skills. 

 

It has been weeks since they slept together, but at least this time they actually bothered to talk about it. Beca had made it very clear that she wanted to take things slow, and Chloe had eagerly agreed. The mere fact that their relationship could continue to progress, regardless of the speed at which that occurs, is such a huge relief. Even more so than it had previously, it feels as though the pieces are falling into place.

 

Seriously, taking things slow was an  _ excellent  _ idea. What they lack in frequent sexcapades they more than make up for in long conversations about anything and everything. Slowly but surely, they are becoming best friends again - best friends who might occasionally cross the line into something else. 

 

They aren’t dating, although Amy jokes that the two of them are so domestic with one another that they might as well be. No, both women still officially refer to themselves as single, and they have each been on dates with other people.

 

(Chloe doesn’t want to speak for Beca, but she knows that her own dates never ended well. She couldn’t bring herself to let them go any further than dinner or a movie; it always felt like she was cheating on a certain brunette best friend of hers).

 

“I think I’m ready,” Beca declares out of the blue, setting her water down on the counter and pointedly ignoring Stacie and Lucy, one of the freshman, sucking face in the seat to her immediate left. 

 

“To go home?” Chloe asks innocently. She frowns. 

 

“No, not that.” The brunette flashes a mischievous smile at her redhead best friend. She places her hands on the older girl’s thighs. “I think I’m ready for… well, you know.”

 

“You’re ready for…  _ oh _ ,” Chloe gasps, her face turning an unflattering shade of red. She is suddenly very aware that Beca is touching her. “I… are you sure?”

 

“I’m sure.”

 

Chloe inhales sharply as Beca’s hands travel farther up her legs. “Okay. Me too.”

 

That is the only response Beca needs, apparently. The younger girl grabs Chloe’s hands and pulls her from her chair, leading her out of the bar so quickly that they are basically running.

 

“Where the hell are we going?” Chloe questions, the laughter evident in her voice.

 

“Anywhere we won’t be seen,” is Beca’s reply. Chloe doesn’t miss the hunger in her eyes. 

 

They eventually make it back to campus and find themselves at the doorstep of the Barden University library, which is far closer than either of their dorms. It’s one o’clock in the morning on a Saturday so it’s obviously closed, but by some strange coincidence (or a brilliantly convenient twist of fate) they find a side door that’s unlocked. Both girls are giggling as they stumble breathlessly into the darkened building, high on the thrill of doing something so stupidly reckless. 

 

The next thing Chloe knows, Beca is kissing her and her hands are tangled in the sophomore’s hair and she is now breathless for a completely different reason. She can’t believe that this is actually happening  _ again _ . Five weeks was a painfully long time to wait, but it was so, so,  _ so  _ worth it. The pleasure she feels when she is with the brunette is incomparable to anything she experienced during her lengthy string of hookups. It’s passionate and dirty but it feels  _ right _ , like they were made for each other.

 

Beca fucks her hard and fast and earnestly in front of a bookshelf containing half a dozen books relating to acapella. The irony isn’t lost on Chloe.

 

This is where she met Jacob. 

 

***

 

They aren’t exclusive, but they continue to regularly have sex for the remainder of the school year. 

 

They also aren’t stupid; they know that Amy knows (because how could they possibly hide it from Beca’s roommate, especially when the brunette is so ridiculously vocal in bed?) but she promises that she won’t say anything to the other Bellas. Chloe and Beca are just best friends who sometimes provide one another with much-need physical releases. There’s nothing wrong with that.

 

(Except… Chloe recalls how easily she and Beca seem to swing between friends and lovers and pseudo-enemies, and she wonders if their relationship is significantly more fucked up than either of them want to admit. She chooses to bury that thought).

 

It is the happiest Chloe has been… ever. Sure, she wishes that she could officially call Beca her girlfriend, but when they are in private, it’s easy to pretend that that is the case. Her grades are struggling ever so slightly, but she tries not to let that worry her. She is having the time of her life with the Bellas, she has yet to fall off of the wagon, and she gets to hear Beca scream her name at least twice a night. Things could certainly be worse.

 

(She would know).

 

As if her life couldn’t be more perfect, they win nationals for the second year in a row. The hug she receives afterwards from Aubrey is so much better than phenomenal, and she is thrilled that she was able to make her  _ other  _ best friend proud, even if she is finishing up an (unnecessary) extra year of college. 

 

The after party is one of the most glamorous events she has ever attended. Everyone (except for Chloe, because she refuses to break her sobriety over something stupid like winning a competition) is drinking champagne, and the food is higher-end than anything she has eaten as a college student. And the clothes - God,  _ the clothes _ . Every single guest is dressed in extremely expensive dresses and suits and the Bellas look almost out of place in this world. She is having trouble believing that this an acapella event.

 

Chloe has no idea where the other Bellas are (they disappeared into the crowd as soon as the party started) but she honestly doesn’t care. She only has eyes for one of her teammates. 

 

Beca is wearing a slim-fitting black dress that hugs her in all the right places, and Chloe has to actively work to stop herself from drooling each time she comes into her line of vision. They aren’t together; the younger woman is aimlessly roaming the party to keep her distance from Aubrey, who is with Chloe. 

 

Chloe loses sight of Beca for a few minutes, but when she locks eyes on her once again, she realizes that the brunette is having a glass of champagne with  _ Jesse _ , of all people. The jealousy instantly bubbles up in her stomach before she remembers that they aren’t exclusive, and Beca is more hers to lose than she is hers to keep. She feels a little bit sick because Beca is laughing at something that Jesse said, and her hand is touching his arm and Chloe is suddenly seeing red.

 

“Go to her,” Aubrey says lazily, yanking Chloe out of her thoughts.

 

“I… what?” Chloe doesn’t remove her gaze from Beca, who is now downing a second glass of champagne.

 

“Oh, cut the act, Chloe,” Aubrey replies with a sigh. “You’ve been staring at Beca all night, and I’m assuming that predatory look in your eyes has something to do with the fact that she’s currently sharing a drink with her ex. Just go to her. You don’t have to hang around for my sake.”

 

“Are you sure?” The question is really just a formality; Chloe fully intends upon breaking up Beca and Jesse’s lovely little reunion, regardless of Aubrey’s response.

 

“Of course. Go get her, tiger.”

 

Aubrey walks away, presumably to find Amy, (or Stacie, they’d been sharing some interesting looks earlier in the evening) and Chloe crosses the room at a rapid pace.

 

Beca doesn’t even notice the redhead until she is right in front of her, blue eyes blazing with an emotion that Beca can’t quite read and Chloe can’t quite identify. Jealousy? Lust? Anger? A combination of the three? Neither woman is sure.

 

“Chloe!” Beca cheerfully greets her best friend, pulling the older woman into a hug. “Hey, you remember Jesse, right?”

 

The aforementioned Jesse waves politely in greeting, but Chloe ignores him. 

 

“I need to speak with you,” she demands, never taking her eyes off of Beca’s face, although that black dress doesn’t exactly leave much to the imagination; wandering eyes are a forceful temptation. “Privately.”

 

“I…” Beca starts to say, furrowing her eyebrows. “Okay, Jesse I guess I’ll be right-”

 

Chloe is dragging her through the throng of people before she even has the chance to finish her sentence. They rapidly reach the (unoccupied, thankfully) restroom, and Chloe shoves her against the wall. Her hands fumble with the zipper of Beca’s dress as she sucks at her neck, raw emotion fueling an intense desire to take the younger woman right here, right  _ now _ .

 

“Chloe, what are you-” Beca can barely get the words out, and she sucks in a breath as Chloe’s wandering hands reach her ass. “What is going on?”

 

“I didn’t want you talking to him,” Chloe growls, continuing to fumble with the zipper. “Now take off your clothes.”

 

She doesn’t have to tell Beca twice. The brunette quickly strips and removes the gorgeous black dress, (which is the tiniest bit of a shame because Chloe is so unimaginably turned on by it) pulling Chloe in for a passionate kiss. It certainly isn’t the nicest location in which they have ever had sex, but the attraction in this moment is so compelling that neither of them can ignore it. 

 

This is not the reason why it is also referred to as “making love.”

 

Chloe leaves scratches down Beca’s back as she comes, and a small (large) part of her hopes that Jesse will be able to see them when he finally decides to make his move on the younger woman, after they both return to the hustle and bustle of the party. 

 

Beca is hers. Hers and nobody else’s. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading and have an amazing day! As always, feedback is more than appreciated, you have no idea.


	8. i don't love you (but i always will)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Hope you enjoy the update! Shit is about to get a little more real.

At the end of it all, Chloe concedes to the fact that her perfect redo of her senior year was too good to be true.

 

She receives the call from the dean three days after their win at nationals; the call that shatters her dream of  _ finally  _ graduating from Barden University and causes that endlessly irritating voice to start gleefully shouting “I told you so!” It’s confusing to hear the words come out of the dean’s mouth. She knew that her grades had been slipping towards the end of the semester, (Beca took up an exceptionally large portion of her free time) but she hadn’t actually thought she was in any danger of failing. 

 

Well, apparently that was a really fucking incorrect assumption, because now she’s sticking around at BU for yet another year.

 

A small part of her is more or less okay with that, although she hates to admit it. Chloe is a little afraid to graduate college, especially considering the lack of anything she has to look forward to afterwards. (What was the point of her degree, anyway?) The Bellas and BU are entire life, and have been for the last five years. She isn’t totally sure that she is ready to move on.

 

Chloe certainly is not ready to leave Beca.

 

She supposes that returning to BU does have a slight silver lining - she won’t have to say goodbye to Beca, and they will continue to be able to spend a ridiculous amount of time together. 

 

(The voice in her mind insists that she subconsciously tanked her grades for this exact reason, and she kind of wants to throw something because there is a decent amount of truth in that horribly unsettling statement).

 

Of course, the backlash she experiences when she informs both her family and Aubrey that she will not be graduating this year is almost enough to convince her to show up at the dean’s house and beg him for mercy. Almost. 

 

Chloe tells her parents via skype one evening, and soon all three of them are crying because how could she do this to herself  _ again _ after she worked so hard over the summer? Cassie is equally as upset with her as her parents and somehow that hurts worse; Cassie doesn’t yell but the disappointment in her voice cuts into Chloe sharper than any knife ever could. She hates that she let her family down, because she is starting to think that is all she does. 

 

Aubrey blows up at her over the phone.

 

She texts the blonde the news that she will be attending BU for a sixth year, and she is positive that Aubrey dials her number the second she reads the message. 

 

“ _ What the fuck were you thinking _ ?” Aubrey shouts.

 

Chloe winces; the blonde isn’t one to be that vulgar with her language, so she is definitely angrier than expected. “Look, Bree, I really didn’t mean to-”

 

“ _ I don’t care _ !” scolds Aubrey, and Chloe can picture her throwing her hands up in the air. “ _ This was supposed to be the year you finally turned yourself around _ !”

 

“I know, and I’m sorry, but-”

 

“ _ As you very well should be! I can’t believe you would delay your future like this, twice, and all for some punk chick who clearly isn’t good for you!” _

 

Although Aubrey cannot see her, Chloe frowns. It takes her an (embarrassingly long) second for the meaning in Aubrey’s words to dawn on her. Her eyes widen and she attempts to placate the anger rising in her throat.

 

“I…  _ what _ ?” Chloe exclaims.

 

“ _ Oh don’t play coy with me, Chloe, you know exactly what I’m talking about _ ,” Aubrey scoffs. “ _ I saw the way you looked at Beca during that party, and I know how you’ve felt about her in the past. How long have you two been sleeping together? A few weeks? _ ”

 

No answer. Chloe has absolutely no idea how to respond.

 

“ _ Don’t even try to deny it, you know I’m right _ .”

 

“Okay, so maybe you are,” Chloe agrees, and she is surprised to discover that her voice is growing thick with emotion. “Maybe there is even the slightest, teeny tiny possibility that me failing yet another semester of college has something to do with Beca, but so what? It’s not like there’s anything wrong with that.”

 

“ _ Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound _ ?” Aubrey, for one, sounds extremely exasperated. She is more than likely pinching the bridge of her nose. “ _ I thought we were past this stage - you know, the one where everything you do is for other people and never yourself.” _

 

“What, so now you’re implying that Beca begged me not to put any effort into my classes so that I’d fail?”   
  


“ _ Of course not! But God, Chloe, have you ever stopped to think about how one-sided your relationship with her is? You keep staying behind for her, but what has she ever done for you _ ?”

 

(Quite frankly, Chloe can think of a few things that Beca has done for her, although she has a sneaking suspicion that Aubrey won’t consider them acceptable answers).

 

“She has been my friend. And Aubrey, listen to me for a second, okay? I appreciate your concern, honestly, but I don’t appreciate you questioning the decisions I choose to make in  _ my  _ personal life. It hasn’t exactly been a secret that you don’t like Beca, and I get that, but I do really like her. Can’t you just support me in this for once? Please?”

 

Aubrey audibly sighs. “ _ I hope you know what you’re doing _ .”

 

The line goes dead.

 

***

 

Summer vacation flies by in a blink-and-you-miss-it sort of way. 

 

Chloe only sees Beca in person twice - once during the Bellas’ first annual beach trip and once when the two women meet to sign the lease on their new group house - but it truthfully isn’t that big of a deal. They FaceTimed almost daily and otherwise kept in fairly steady contact, unlike the previous summer. 

 

(She doesn’t see Aubrey at all).

 

Despite the less than stellar end to her second senior year, Chloe has grown to be content with her life and is hopeful that the third time truly will be the charm. If she can help it, she absolutely  _ will not  _ be the girl who took eight years to finish a four-year degree. That would be beyond humiliating.

 

So with the Bellas spread out across the country and Chloe stuck in Virginia, she is forced to spend her vacation with her family, which isn’t the least bit bad as soon as she realizes that they are no longer angry with her. Cassie even brings Michael and the girls down to visit and Claire decides to come home after a three-year stay in St. Louis with her boyfriend. Honestly, this summer is the most at peace Chloe has felt during the warmer months in years… with one glaringly obvious exception.

 

She should have known that social media was going to be the death of her.

 

The two women are thousands of miles apart, but Beca somehow still manages to regularly spend time with  _ Jesse _ , of all people. He is almost always on her Snapchat story and they post a few photos on Instagram together. Chloe’s blood boils whenever she notices that they are hanging out (but it is definitely not like she’s digitally stalking the brunette, because that would be weird) and her disgruntlement only increases when it occurs to her that there is absolutely nothing she can do to rectify the situation.

 

Beca is hers, not his, but she is several thousand miles away and he lives two towns over. How can she compete with that?

 

It doesn’t appear as though the brunette and her goofy, boy-next-door ex have reignited their old flame, but Chloe has a jealous streak and is determined to ensure that Jesse knows who Beca belongs to (because she is also apparently rather possessive).

 

An opportunity presents itself three days before classes start, just as Chloe is nearing a point at which she will spontaneously combust. Chloe and Beca decide to return to campus early so they can prepare the Bellas’ new house, which is a surprise for the other girls. This means that they will be spending at least one night together. Alone. In an empty house. 

 

A more perfect scenario couldn’t have been handed to her on a silver platter. She intends to use it to her advantage… who knows how long it will be until she and Beca have alone time again, especially with all of the Bellas living in such close proximity?

 

Besides, Chloe has missed Beca. It will be a relief to simply sit and talk with her best friend, because that is consistently the best part of her day. She always feels calm and at peace after chats with Beca, and she hopes that their night together will ease some of her anxieties as the enters her third senior year at Barden University.

 

Of course, the physical attraction causes such strong withdrawal symptoms that it needs to be relieved before anything else can be addressed. 

 

When they reunite, it doesn’t take long for things to get heated.  _ Clearly  _ Beca had the same idea regarding their plans for the evening, because the “hello” has barely left Chloe’s mouth before she is pushed into the counter of their new kitchen.

 

“I missed you,” Beca whispers breathlessly between kisses. She pauses to briefly cup Chloe’s face, as if taking in the beauty of her lover. 

 

“No talking,” Chloe replies, effortlessly forcing them to change positions so that she is no longer the one pressed against the counter. Beca gasps, then giggles, as she hits the hard surface.

 

On any other given day, Chloe would not consider herself to be a particularly dominant person, (just ask literally anyone who has put her into a situation that required any form of confrontation) but there is something extremely satisfying about having control in her, well,  _ sexcapades  _ with Beca. Especially when a certain Treblemaker has obviously been putting the moves on  _ her  _ lady. 

 

She absolutely cannot have that, now can she?

 

Chloe pulls (rips, because she isn’t one for taking things slow) off her shirt and motions for Beca to do the same. The brunette obliges and Chloe goes to work on her, slowly tracing kisses down her body until she reaches the hemline of her jeans.

 

From above, Beca’s fingernails dig into Chloe’s scalp - the pressure is building and it demands release. Chloe can tell, and she  _ loves  _ it.

 

More skillfully than any man she has ever slept with, Chloe removes Beca’s jeans and works her magic. She fucks her hard and fast and dirty, much like most of the sexual encounters they have enjoyed previously. Chloe loves Beca, but there is no evidence of love (well, of the emotional variety) when they enter the bedroom (or, at the present moment, a brand new kitchen).

 

Beca almost immediately begins to whimper with pleasure. As aforementioned, the younger woman has always been quite vocal in bed. The sound is like music to Chloe’s ears, (as a trained musician, she would know) and she is filled with waves of pleasure that are entirely her own.

 

Quietly, so barely audible that she almost misses it, Beca emits a small noise that is all to similar to the name  _ Chloe _ . The redhead, as possessive as ever, almost loses her shit. She rises to make eye contact with the brunette, who looks as though she is holding back a scream.

 

“Say it again,” Chloe demands, her voice a low growl in Beca’s ear. “Say my name, say you’re mine and no one else’s.”

 

“I-I’m yours,” Beca stammers because she has begun panting in earnest. “Yours and no one else- oh  _ fuck _ ,  _ Chloe _ .”

 

Beca bucks her hips into Chloe as she says those words, which serves as nothing short of encouragement for the redhead. 

 

“Louder,” she says, proceeding to suck on the brunette’s neck.

 

“Chloe…” 

 

“Louder!”

 

“Chloe… Chloe…  Chloe Chloe  _ Chloe _ !” Beca is initially moaning her name but she screams it when she comes, arching her back against the counter.

 

Chloe is indescribably pleased, and she triumphantly places a kiss on Beca’s lips. That will probably keep the brunette from thinking about Jesse for a long time.

 

(She wonders if he can make her scream like that. She figures he most likely can’t).

 

*** 

 

When the rest of the Bellas arrive two days later, Beca moves into a room with Amy, mostly because they were roommates last year. Chloe opts to live alone (as one of the co-captains, she was given the option of a single bedroom). Sure, they would much prefer to be together, but they decide that it might cause too much suspicion if they chose to literally share a bed.

 

It isn’t that big of a deal. It’s not like they’re animals - they don’t need to be boning  _ all  _ of the time in order to be happy. 

 

So, thankfully, they manage to make the transition to sort-of-roommates very easily. (Beca sneaks downstairs to “sleep” with Chloe on occasion, and they can only hope that Jessica and Ashley can’t hear them from next door). It’s actually quite nice to have all of the Bellas in one house. They practically spend every waking minute together anyway, so it is pretty sensible that they are now always together at night as well.

 

Speaking of the Bellas, auditions are disappointingly dull - more so than they have been in years, which is surprising. Chloe honestly thought that with their continued winning streak, people would be more interested in joining their family. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of a nationally ranked college acapella group? Instead, they manage to initiate a whopping three new members: Flo, a transfer student from a college in Guatemala; Michaela, a freshman with an obvious wild side; and Victoria, another freshman, who immediately takes a liking to Beca. 

 

(Chloe isn’t exactly Victoria’s biggest fan).

 

Beca also takes a liking to Victoria. (How could she not? Victoria is tall and hot and blonde and has flawless skin. She’s the whole package). She seems to be treating their relationship as a mentor and mentee sort of situation, regardless of Victoria’s obvious physical beauty, but it’s clear to anyone with eyes that Victoria does  _ not  _ see things in the same way. Amy, Stacie, Ashley, and CR all agree with Chloe on one glaringly obvious fact: the new girl has the hots for one of the co-captains.

 

(Spoiler alert - that co-captain is most certainly not Chloe).

 

It starts out as little things - picking up Beca’s favorite coffee, offering to do her laundry, putting in extra time at Bellas rehearsals - all perfectly normal things that cause it to appear as though Victoria (or  _ Tori _ , as she prefers to be called) is simply being a kiss-ass. At first, Chloe genuinely thinks she’s imagining it. Maybe she’s going crazy; maybe Tori really just wants to get in Beca’s good graces.

 

But then Chloe comes home one day and the two girls are baking cookies in the kitchen and Tori’s hands are on the brunette’s waist for some reason that she can’t understand. They’re both laughing. The scene makes her sick to her stomach with an unholy mixture of jealousy and rage.

 

Unsurprisingly, Tori just wants to get in Beca’s pants. How fucking shocking.

 

They don’t notice Chloe at first. They continue to laugh - probably at something Tori said, since she’s obviously God’s gift to humor - and Tori feeds Beca a spoonful of cookie dough, all the while maintaining at least one hand on Beca’s body. Unlike a few seconds earlier, it is now resting on her shoulder.

 

Chloe closes the door. Hard. Beca looks up, startled, and her face instantly breaks into a smile.

 

“Hey, you’re back early!” Beca says excitedly.

 

“Yeah, my professor let us out of class sooner than I thought he would,” Chloe replies, crossing the room to lean on the kitchen counter (the same kitchen counter she fucked Beca against less than a month earlier, and she hopes that message is conveyed to the brunette).

 

“Well that’s a good thing!” exclaims Tori. She playfully nudges Beca in the shoulder. “Now you can help us finish baking these cookies!”

 

The cookie dough is  _ clearly  _ finished, so Chloe isn’t entirely sure why Tori said she could help them finish. 

 

Tori brushes Beca’s hair away from her neck, her fingers lingering on the exposed skin. From where Chloe is standing, it looks a hell of a lot like Tori is gently stroking the older girl. Chloe has to actively think about keeping her jaw from dropping. The nerve of some people, touching things (people) that don’t belong to them.

 

She drums her fingers on the countertop. “Yes. I suppose that’s true.”

 

“Great!” is Tori’s cheerful reply. “All we have left to do is put them in the oven! Beca, would you mind?”

 

“Not at all!”

 

Chloe watches as Beca picks up the tray of cookies and bends over to place them on the oven’s top rack. Tori looks pointedly in Chloe’s direction before training her eyes on Beca’s ass. Now Chloe’s jaw actually does drop; she cannot believe that the younger woman is being so blatantly obvious in her advances. Who the hell does she think she is?   
  


It simultaneously occurs to her that Tori only wanted her to stick around so she could put on this show. But why does the freshman feel the need to flaunt her attraction to Beca? Could she possibly know about the more-than-friends relationship that exists between the co-captains? But how could she? If so, why would she be interested in ruining that? Tori is supposed to be a Bellas sister; she is part of their little family now. Family doesn’t sabotage family. That’s the rule.

 

When Beca straightens back up, Tori clears her throat and quickly focuses on something else. It doesn’t appear as though this goes unnoticed by Beca, who furrows her eyebrows in confusion, and Chloe pounces on this window of opportunity.

 

“So I guess now that the cookies are done, you’re free to do something else!” Chloe points out, her voice falsely pleasant. “Aren’t you, Beca?”

 

Still frowning, her co-captain runs a hand through her hair. “Yeah, I guess so. Do you want to work on some arrangements now?”

 

“My room in five?”

 

“I’ll be there.”

 

Chloe flashes a smile (well, it’s more of a sneer, really) at Tori, who seems to be attempting to swallow a mouse. Triumphant as always, Chloe leaves the kitchen and goes to wait for Beca in her room. She really does have a jealous streak, and proving that she gets to come out on top (both literally and figuratively) gives her quite the thrill. She strips naked upon returning to her room, and when Beca opens the door five minutes later…

 

“ _ Chloe _ , holy shit!” Beca whisper-yells, clutching at her chest. “This isn’t what I meant when I said I wanted to work on stuff for the Bellas!”

 

“Why, you aren’t in the mood right now?” 

 

“No, I never said that! I just… it’s broad daylight. People could see us. People could  _ hear  _ us, for goodness sake, so I-”

 

Chloe silences her with a passionate kiss, and Beca sighs contentedly into her mouth, her little rant abruptly cut short. After the highly uncomfortable scene that she had to witness in the kitchen, the simple sound is the biggest turn-on for Chloe.

 

“You were saying?” Chloe asks, grinning. There is a mischievous glint her eyes.

 

Beca doesn’t answer, but instead pins Chloe on the bed and makes sure that the redhead  _ most definitely  _ realizes that Tori means nothing to her. (In the dictionary, if one were to look up the phrase “that escalated quickly,” there would be a picture of this scenario). The redhead literally has to shove her entire fist in her mouth to keep from screaming; Beca has  _ never  _ been like this with her. She is being anything but gentle, but Chloe has truly never loved her more. (She has also  _ never _ , even during her endless string of random hookups, been fucked this thoroughly. She is pretty sure her body will leave an imprint in her mattress after they’re done).

 

In all honesty, Chloe has loved Beca for years, but in her sex-induced high she genuinely believes that  _ this  _ is what the truest brand of love feels like, and before she can stop herself, just as she is reaching the point in which she can no longer take it, she utters the three little words that change her life forever.

 

“I love you.”

 

It is a half-moan, half-scream, and Beca definitely hears it. Once Chloe has finished, she gives the redhead a strange look before gathering her things and fleeing the room, and Chloe is left to come down from her high, alone and hopelessly confused. She can’t believe that she said that for the first time during  _ sex _ , of all the times or places - it is one hundred percent true, but she can’t believe she just admitted one of her deepest secrets in a fit of euphoria.

 

She starts to cry. 

 

***

 

Like so many other things in their relationship, they don’t talk about it. Why would they? It isn’t like Chloe has changed the game forever by forcing them to define what they are, which may or may not be exclusively friends with benefits.

 

_ Oh wait _ .

 

They don’t speak at all for three days, actually. It’s literal torture. There are so many things that Chloe wants to say to the brunette, (a real, heartfelt confession of her love being one of those things) but it is hard to start a conversation with someone who just so happens to be actively avoiding her.

 

She is angry with herself. Once again, they are back in the same never-ending circle of communication issues - a circle caused by Chloe. She didn’t mean to cross the line and admit to any real feelings, but that doesn’t make them any less real to her. She does love Beca. She has loved Beca since the moment she first laid eyes on her over two years prior, yet she is seemingly unable to own up to the fact that she admitted such a closely guarded secret.

 

Besides, Beca seems pretty keen on avoiding a discussion. She excuses herself whenever Chloe returns to the house, and she doesn’t bother to interact with her unless others are around. They are never alone for three days that eventually turn into a week and a half that involves Chloe (once or twice) getting into her car and driving to the nearest liquor store, only to sit in the parking lot and stare at the door. She sometimes treats herself to McDonald’s on the way back to campus, because if she can’t have alcohol then she’ll have to settle for the next best thing - junk food. 

 

It is a sad reality that her life has been so quickly reduced to such a mundane routine.

 

Thankfully, it doesn’t last any longer than eleven days. (Eleven brutal, torturous days). Beca silently enters her room on the night of the eleventh day, wearing nothing but a bathrobe and carrying what Chloe quickly recognizes to be a bottle of wine.

 

“Don’t worry,” Beca says upon noticing the look of shock on Chloe’s face. “It’s non-alcoholic. I just figured we could use something to drink.”

 

Chloe puts down the book she had been reading before Beca interrupted her. “Beca, why are you here?”

 

Beca pauses for a moment, evidently baffled, and wets her lips. “I missed you.”

 

A sickening desire to laugh out loud wells up within Chloe.  _ Of course _ Beca missed her. Why else would she have actively avoided interacting with the redhead for over a week? Isn’t that what people do when they miss someone? Bullshit.

 

“You’ve barely spoken to me recently.”

 

“I know, I-” Beca begins to nervously reply before Chloe cuts her off.

 

“You said this wouldn’t happen again.” Her voice is ice cold.

 

“I know, and I-”

 

“I seem to recall you actually  _ threatening me  _ at the beginning of last school year, should this ever happen again.”

 

She isn’t completely sure where she is getting the courage to say all of these things to the brunette. Usually, when it comes to Beca, Chloe is anything but good at expressing what she is really thinking; however, tonight, the days of being ignored by her best friend (and the love of her life) seem to be fueling her anger, which is seeping into her words.

 

“I know, and I’m sorry,” Beca apologizes, her eyes pleading with Chloe to forgive her. “I guess I just-”

 

“Panicked?” Chloe cocks her head to one side as she cuts off Beca for a third time.

 

Beca doesn’t answer. She looks a lot like she is about to burst into tears, because she knows what Chloe is going to say next. They both do.

 

“I told you that I loved you.”

 

“I… you did.” Beca’s voice is thick with an unidentified emotion.

“You didn’t say it back. You didn’t say anything at all. You left my room in a hurry and ignored me for over a week afterwards.”

 

Chloe is well aware that her own voice is rising, but she doesn’t make any effort to calm herself down. She needs Beca to realize that she has been hurt by this whole situation. She needs Beca to realize that she was being one-hundred percent serious; she loves her wholly and fully, without even a shadow of a doubt.

 

“You caught me off guard,” Beca explains. “I didn’t… I didn’t know what to say.”

 

“You could’ve said it back,” Chloe points out, tears suddenly filling her eyes. She furiously wipes them away.

 

“Did you want me to lie?”

 

The sentence is simple, yet it feels like a thousand knives are piercing Chloe’s heart from all possible angles. She doesn’t want to assume, but it sounds a hell of a lot like Beca doesn’t love her, because to say such a thing would be untruthful. Chloe wants to throw up.

 

She forces the words out anyway. “Excuse me?”

 

“God, Chloe, what did you think we were doing?” Beca asks, the words leaving her mouth in a sob. “Did you think we were… oh God, did you think we were dating? Or that we could end up being in an actual relationship like that?”

 

The silence is enough of an answer for Beca.

 

“It was never like that!” Beca exclaims. She runs the hand that isn’t clutching the bottle of non-alcoholic wine through her hair. “I thought…  _ I  _ thought we were just having fun. Taking the edge off together, you know? You’re my best friend, Chloe. You didn’t… you didn’t actually think it was anything more, did you?”

 

A million thoughts are running through Chloe’s head, the most prominent being that she deeply wishes with every fiber of her existence that the wine wasn’t non-alcoholic. She could really go for something stronger than glorified grape juice at the moment. She is also horrified by the realization that the ugly truth is finally coming to light, and it’s all her fault. If she could have managed to keep her big mouth shut and not confess to loving Beca during sex, maybe they wouldn’t be having this conversation. Maybe their relationship wouldn’t be littered with the gaping holes that are currently being fired into it. Maybe they could have remained blissfully unaware of the other woman’s true opinions.

 

Yet… here they are. Beca is admitting that Chloe was only ever meant to warm her bed and make her feel good, while Chloe is pretty sure her entire world is crashing down around her.

 

“Would it matter if I did?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

They don’t speak for a few minutes. Beca is openly crying, and she removes the seal on the wine bottle before taking several long swigs. She is probably also wishing that it isn’t non-alcoholic.

 

(Why is Beca so upset? It’s not like she’s the one who destroyed everything they had).

 

Chloe, on the other hand, retreats into herself the second she has the opportunity. She has absolutely no idea what to say. Here she is, losing her most valued relationship, all because they had two completely different perceptions regarding the nature of their sexcapades. Chloe had naively assumed that they were taking the first steps towards something more serious. Beca had rather effectively been using her, whether she meant to or not.

 

It sucked, to say the very least.

 

She has no idea what to do. Lie? Beg Beca to feel the same way? Burst into tears and leave? She really isn’t sure what her best option is, nor does she know what she wants. It’s too difficult of a situation to make a choice on a whim.

 

“I do love you, you know,” Beca whispers, and for one beautiful moment, Chloe’s heart soars with hope. “I just… I don’t love you in that way.”

 

Her heart crashes back down to reality and shatters into a million pieces. She swallows the lump forming in her throat and blinks back the river of tears threatening to flood the whole damn house. She can’t breathe. She can’t believe that this is happening, after everything the two of them have been through.

 

She thinks about the way Beca treated her during sex, and she doesn’t understand how that couldn’t be evidence of love. The brunette was almost always gentle; she seemed to care about Chloe and her experience. 

 

She thinks about the night they shared in the very place where she met Jacob, and she reflects upon how, for the first time since he had cheated on her years earlier, she felt as though she had control over the situation. Like that missing piece had finally fallen back into place. Like she had come full circle.

 

She thinks about the way she and Beca used to laugh together; she thinks about the way their relationship was always more than just friends with benefits, which is why she cannot believe that Beca never loved her in every sense of the word. It hurts far more than she can begin to describe, but she cannot break down yet.

 

Chloe will not allow Beca to see her fall apart. Not again. Not because of her.

 

“I’m sorry.” No longer openly crying, a single tear rolls down Beca’s cheek.

 

It takes everything within Chloe to respond in the way in which she does. It is painful and raw and horrendously emotional, but she knows that it is what she must do. It may not necessarily be what she wants, but it is what is best for both of them, especially if she ever hopes to remain friends with the younger woman.

 

“Don’t be,” Chloe replies curtly. “I don’t love you either.”

 

Beca looks shocked (or, strangely, devastated). “I… but you said…”

 

“It just came out. You made me feel things and I… I couldn’t help it. I never meant it. We’re just friends, nothing more. Always have been… always will be.”

 

Chloe has definitely had her fair share of unpleasant experiences in her life, but forcing herself to say those words is so unbelievably excruciating that she almost takes it all back. Almost. 

 

“You don’t love me.”

 

“No.” Yes. More than she could ever adequately express.

 

“Then… I guess that’s that.”   
  


“Yes, I suppose it is.”

 

They don’t talk for several more minutes. Beca continues to chug the non-alcoholic wine, and the sight intensifies Chloe’s desire for the real thing. She contemplates asking the younger woman to leave, or picking up her book and continuing to read it, although neither of those things sound remotely appealing to her. She would honestly much prefer to melt into the floor and never, ever reappear.

 

“I guess I should be going,” Beca quietly breaks their silence.

 

“You should,” Chloe agrees.

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

 

“Yeah… yeah, you will.”

 

“Good night, Chloe.”

 

“Good night, Beca.”

 

The brunette turns to leave the room. She lingers at the door, but only for the briefest of seconds, before stepping out into the hallways and into her brand new role in Chloe’s life.

 

Chloe releases the sob she has been holding in ever since Beca entered her room in the first place. She cries for what feels like hours, fully immersed in an anguish that she is fairly certain will never disappear.

 

Beca doesn’t love her. She said that she doesn’t love Beca either, but that was the biggest lie she has ever told, because she will  _ always  _ love Beca. Even when she hates her, she will continue to love her. Even when it seems like loving her will kill them both, she will love her. Even when it becomes painfully apparent that her affections are not reciprocated, she will continue to love her, because that is exactly why Beca is the love of her life. Nothing will deter her feelings for the younger woman, not even the younger woman herself.

 

She accepts that. 

 

Despite this, Chloe realizes that the pain she is feeling is almost too unbearable, and she also realizes that one thing and one thing only can take away that pain, even if just for a little bit. 

 

Alcohol.

 

She hasn’t had anything to drink in over a year, and she knows that it isn’t  _ really  _ Beca’s fault, but the fact remains that she is experiencing a ridiculous amount of emotional torment. Something must be done to alleviate that suffering.

 

She knows that it’s wrong. Really, she does, and she is pretty damn certain that she will regret it in the morning, but… she can’t sit here and wallow in her own self-pity. Chloe grabs her keys from her dresser, throws on a jacket, and wanders out into the night, searching for some relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if you hate me. I get it. It's chill. We'll get to touch more on the situation in the next chapter, so stay tuned!
> 
> Have a great day! Feedback is always appreciated!


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